title: Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side
author:  Beth Fantaskey 
description: Starred Review. A romance involving a high school girl and a handsome vampire may sound a little too familiar, yet this first novel quickly bursts ahead of the pack of <i>Twilight</i>-wannabes. Down-to-earth mathlete Jessica Packwood is completely horrified when, a few months shy of her 18th birthday, a Romanian named Lucius Vladescu shows up on her doorstep, claiming that he and she are vampire royalty betrothed to each other since infancywhat's worse, her adoptive parents verify the betrothal story and explain that her birth parents identified themselves as vampires, too. Fantaskey makes this premise work by playing up its absurdities without laughing at them, endowing Jessica with a coolly ironic sensibility and Lucius with old-world snobberies that Jessica's girlfriends find irresistible. Jessica's laidback parents serve as foils for imperious Lucius (Can I ever again be happy in our soaring Gothic castle after walking the halls of Woodrow Wilson High School, a literal ode to linoleum? he asks sarcastically); a scene at a steakhouse where the vegan Packwoods meet the carnivorous Vladescus is first-rate comedy. The romance sizzles, the plot develops ingeniously and suspensefully, and the satire sings. Ages 14up. <i>(Feb.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
zlib_text: **Table of Contents**
  
  She knew she should resist him but she couldn’t…
  
  The Novels of Lynn Kerstan
  
  The Golden Leopard
  
  Dedication
  
  Prologue
  
  Chapter 1
  
  Chapter 2
  
  Chapter 3
  
  Chapter 4
  
  Chapter 5
  
  Chapter 6
  
  Chapter 7
  
  Chapter 8
  
  Chapter 9
  
  Chapter 10
  
  Chapter 11
  
  Chapter 12
  
  Chapter 13
  
  Chapter 14
  
  Chapter 15
  
  Chapter 16
  
  Chapter 17
  
  Chapter 18
  
  Chapter 19
  
  Chapter 20
  
  Chapter 21
  
  Chapter 22
  
  Chapter 23
  
  Chapter 24
  
  Chapter 25
  
  Chapter 26
  
  Chapter 27
  
  Chapter 28
  
  Chapter 29
  
  Chapter 30
  
  Chapter 31
  
  About the Author
  
  **She knew she should resist him but she couldn’t…**
  
    
  
  “Look down, Jessica. Watch my hand.” His fingers mesmerized her. She couldn’t
  answer. She could only feel.
  
  It was so overwhelming that in the aftermath, she felt herself falling into
  unwanted sleep. Distantly she felt him lift her and cross to the bed. She
  fought the darkness closing over her. It was unfair to deny him. And however
  great the pleasure she had just experienced, it was nothing compared to being
  joine