And Falling, Fly by Skyler White

 Dark dark dark. Those beings that we call vampires are fallen angels, who subsist on the blood and emotions of their victims, Olivia, the Angel of Desire, believes that the only way she can be restored to her former, unfallen, state is if a human actually loves her for herself, rather than being merely infatuated and "in lust" with her. Other vamps seem to revel in their fallen state, and have no need for redemption.

Dominic O'Shaugnessy is a brain chemistry researcher in California who may or may not be victim of a curse which forces him to be reincarnated endlessly, with full "flashback" memories of all of the wives and children he has had to bury over the centuries. The team for which he works is trying to find a way to biochemically remove specific memories for trauma victims, and he has a vested interest in the success of the project, so when a wealthy benefactor is willing to give him millions for his research so that he can remove the "false memories" leading to her goddaughter's obsession with vampirism, he leaps at the chance.

White's prose is at times evocative, novel and creative.

"-but Adam's end-of-day reunion ritual dictates that we confess our grievances using the form of the employee's creed... I elect to berate The Client, the mysterious entity who pays our salaries and thus, in a market economy, is our superior and therefore, in American mythology, our inferior. Adam recites his day in the Idiot Boss variation..."

But....I just didn't quite frankly give a hoot about what happened to anyone in this book.

If you like it dark and twisted, give Skyler White a try.

Vanna Speaks by Vanna White

I'd had this one on my to-read list for a long time (as you might imagine, since it came out in 1987). Turned out like an eclair - quick, fluffy and not much substance. One of the things that was entertaining about reading Vanna's autobiography was that she was pretty much a contemporary, about the same age as the cheerleaders I had crushes on in high school, and coincidentally she was a cheerleader as well. Her younger brother graduated the same year I did. So, most of the musicians and pop culture she describes as part of her background is very familiar to me.

Vanna had always wanted to be a model and actress, and she had some early success soon after graduating from high school in the Atlanta area, working trade shows and other gigs. When she decided a few years later to move to L.A., things were pretty tough for a while, and she didn't really hit the big time until she got the job on Wheel of Fortune, where she's been ever since.

Though she seems to have led a fairy tale life with her success in Hollywood, she's been hit pretty hard by a number of personal tragedies, beginning with her mother's death from cancer just as she was beginning to achieve personal success, followed a few years later by her boyfriend, John Gibson's, death in a fiery plane crash. She and Gibson, a former Chippendale's dancer, were very close friends with Hugh Hefner of Playboy Magazine, and she was quite surprised when Hugh betrayed her trust by publishing some early lingerie photos she had thought long buried and forgotten after claiming he'd never do anything to hurt her. No honor among playboys, eh?

The main purpose of this book seems to be to answer all of the common questions that Vanna gets asked in her fan mail, all in one convenient location.