Wicked Game | 
 enlarge | Author: Jeri Smith-ready
Publisher: Pocket
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 19098
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 141655176X
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9781416551768
ASIN: 141655176X
Publication Date: May 13, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Read (overnight) once & put on shelf.
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Product Description
LATE NIGHT RADIO YOU CAN SINK YOUR TEETH INTO Recovering con artist Ciara Griffin is trying to live the straight life, even if it means finding a (shudder!) real job. She takes an internship at a local radio station, whose late-night time-warp format features 1940s blues, '60s psychedelia, '80s goth, and more, all with an uncannily authentic flair. Ciara soon discovers just how the DJs maintain their cred: they're vampires, stuck forever in the eras in which they were turned. Ciara's first instinct, as always, is to cut and run. But communications giant Skywave wants to buy WVMP and turn it into just another hit-playing clone. Without the station -- and the link it provides to their original Life Times -- the vampires would "fade," becoming little more than mindless ghosts of the past. Suddenly a routine corporate takeover is a matter of life and undeath. To boost ratings and save the lives of her strange new friends, Ciara rebrands the station as "WVMP, the Lifeblood of Rock 'n' Roll." In the ultimate con, she hides the DJs' vampire nature in plain sight, disguising the bloody truth as a marketing gimmick. WVMP becomes the hottest thing around -- next to Ciara's complicated affair with grunge vamp Shane McAllister. But the "gimmick" enrages a posse of ancient and powerful vampires who aren't so eager to be brought into the light. Soon the stakes are higher -- and the perils graver -- than any con game Ciara's ever played....
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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
 Original take on vampires! July 17, 2008
Jeri Smith Ready's Wicked Game is a highly original vampire novel. Providing a unique twist and lovable characters, this book's a real winner. More! More!!
Enchanting Review: Wicked Game July 4, 2008
WICKED GAME
JERI SMITH-READY
Rating: 4.5 Enchantments
Ciara Griffin is trying to put her con artist past behind her, and move forward with her life. Which is why getting the job at WVMP seems to be a step in the right direction, until she realizes her new co-workers are not what she expected. More precisely, the DJs are all vampires, and her new boss, he's a former member of The Control, a group dedicated to looking out for the vampires' best interests.
Ms. Smith-Ready creates a fabulous urban fantasy world in WICKED GAME. Her vampires are truly unique, as they're each grounded into the time they `died'. Hence, the need to maintain some sort of connection to the era to stay alive. WVMP offers the perfect solution, letting each DJ conduct a show specializing in their own era, but when the station is threatened with being sold, it's the vampires' lives that are at stake. If they lose their connection, eventually they'll fade and die.
One of my favorite scenes in the book is when Ciara tags along with co-worker Franklin to one of their advertisers store, in order to sell more ad space. Franklin seems to be failing to get Waxing Nostalgic to buy when Ciara talks the owner into buying eight weeks worth of advertising, before the price goes up.
I truly enjoyed WICKED GAME. The characters are great and the story takes a couple unexpected turns which kept me reading this one straight through. If you're looking for a fun read about not-your-typical vamps, definitely pick up WICKED GAME. I look forward to reading the sequel, `Bad To The Bone' which releases Spring 2009.
You can visit Jeri Smith-Ready online at http://www.jerismithready.com/ and check out WVMP for yourself at http://wvmpradio.com/
Lisa
Enchanting Reviews
May 2008
Wicked Game by Jeri Smit-Ready July 4, 2008
I started reading Wicked Game by Jeri Smith-Ready around 9:30pm. I then proceeded to read it non-stop till 5:45am. I can only say thank you, thank you, thank you to Jeri herself for picking my name for the ARC contest on her website. Not only does she know her music inside and out, but she took everyday vampires and made them into something more interesting and original than a lot of others out there. Vampires always stay the same physical age, and are usually beautiful beings. Which is the case in Wicked Game, but these Vampires are stuck in the decade in which they were made.
The main group of characters are Vampire DJ's at WMMP, and on their individual shows they play music from the era in which they mentally remain in. The main character, and totally human Ciara (pronounced Keer-ah, which is pointed out twice in the beginning so it's clear), is hired to help save their radio station. Ciara doesn't know how to fight and she doesn't have super natural powers. The girl is a con artist that just uses her BRAIN! Shane, Mr. Stuck in 1995, reminds me of my flannel wearing high school days, and makes me miss all the really great influential music of that time.
 New Take on the Vampire World June 25, 2008
After thinking I had read almost everything about vampires this book has brought up some interesting twists. Vampires are dependent on staying rooted both in their own time (the time they died) and the current state of being. They have OCD and just can't change. It was kinda fun not to just see the beautiful, dark, and mysterious vampire community but instead some sort of flawed existence.
 Though entertaining at times, this book just didn't do it for me June 21, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Ciara Griffin is a con artist who is trying to put the past behind her. Ciara parents were two professional swindlers who taught her everything she knows. But now that her mother's behind bars and her father has disappeared, Ciara just wants to be like everyone else. She performs one last con--a big one--to get her enough money to pay for college, and then decides to become an honest woman. It's with this in mind that Ciara goes to an interview for a marketing internship at WMMP (which sounds disturbingly like wimp to her jaded ears). It seems that Ciara's past makes her a prime candidate for the position, but before she can start the job the general manager gives her some required reading that might help her get to know her coworkers a little better--and help her decide if she can hack it (no pun intended). The required reading is a field guide to vampires. Long story short, vampires are stuck in the life time in which they died. Time is basically standing still for them, and it can be difficult to adjust to modern times. Each of the DJs at WMMP is so good at what they do because they are still frozen in the time period of the music they play. Like Monroe, an African American who died in the 40's and has a blues program, or Shane, a grungy rocker who died in the mid-90's with a penchant for Nirvana and angst.
Ciara is initially skeptical and dismissive--she was raised on scams and she knows one when she sees it. But when one of the DJs (Shane) proves just how real vampires are by biting her, Ciara comes face to face with the harsh reality that everything is not as it seems. And when the station is threatened from a buyout by a corporate giant (think Empire Records (Remix! Special Fan Edition)), it's up to Ciara to come up with another con to keep them in business. Revamping the WMMPy name, Ciara comes up with WVMP, the Lifeblood of Rock n Roll. She plans to out the DJs for what they are--vampires--and use this gimmick to convince listeners that this is why they're so in tune with the music they play. Her plan is a hit; at least until some other vampires decide they don't like having their truth broadcast over the airwaves. Suddenly Ciara, and the DJs, have more to worry about than preventing a takeover, they have to worry about keeping themselves alive.
Wicked Game was funny at times, but as a whole it just didn't do it for me. I just couldn't always generate the interest it took to read another page. In fact, I put it down several times while I read other things and only came back to it because I'm a person who finishes what she starts. I can't exactly pinpoint what it is that didn't work for me. I liked Ciara more than a lot of other romance heroines. I admired the fact that she knew when she was having a TSTL moment, and made the reader aware of it as well. It was a lot easier to tolerate than some simpering whiner who complains when bad things keep happening. And I liked Shane as the romantic interest, though I wished Ciara would quit stringing him along and make up her mind already. I think it's probably just that this book wasn't fast paced enough for me. Things moved slowly, and by the time there was a little action I couldn't really work up the motivation to care. Still, this book wasn't awful by any means. It had a lot of music trivia and some snappy dialogue, but it didn't balance out the uneven pacing and slow moments. I'd read another book by Jeri Smith-Ready, but I wouldn't pass this one on to a friend.
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