April 12, 2013 – Suddenly they all died. The end.

Today I’m having a look at the third book in The Banned Underground series, cleverly titled The Vampire Mechanic. In book three, the guys help out new friends Santa’s Little Helpers, who have wrecked the sleigh…

Oh, dear. Santa’s not-so-little helpers have “borrowed” his sleigh on their way to a Banned Underground concert – and crashed it on the way. Can the Banned help them before Santa finds out? But the mechanic who services the sleigh is a vampire, and getting the job done could be a challenge. If that’s not enough, the Dark Lord’s Mercedes is getting a bit long in the tooth, too, and he fancies the sleigh as a replacement. And will Grizelda, the off-white witch give back the reindeer after using one to win the local show-jumping competition?

With the vampire mechanic in the clutches of the apprentice Dark Lord and Grizelda’s dreams of blue ribbons, the Banned will have to go like a Bat Out of Hell this time. . .

The vampires in this story definitely don’t sparkle; they’re too depressed. And at over six feet tall, Santa’s Little Helpers are anything but little. The satnav makes a hilarious return, with the help of its Prescient Predictive Progression function, or PPP, and naturally Grizelda makes frequent use of her people to frog spell. The Watches mix it up with some local Druids on their way to stealing Santa’s sleigh, and end up with Notsanta’s Notsleigh instead. I definitely wouldn’t want to end up on his naughty list. . .

This series gets better with each book I read. I feel like I’m a broken record saying that I laughed my head off and that I couldn’t put it down, but I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true. This book is a must-read. So go on, already! Read it! Then we can discuss our favorite parts at length over a nice cup of tea and maybe a nice slice of cake or ten. 😀