The Bard Vampire

Shakespeare Undead by Lori Handeland

A quick fun read.
The creature known as Will Shakespeare can raise the dead, has supernatural strength, avoids the morning sun, drinks blood, and composes sonnets.  Two plagues interrupt his creative process; the bubonic infection and the walking undead.  The victims of the latter will crack open even a vampires head in search for brains.  Strangely, the country attribute a staggered gate, decaying skin, murderous brain eating behavior and "Brrrr" moaning with the symptoms of an infection.
On a walk to clear his head and find inspiration for his next play, he encounters a zombie horde. He is saved from losing his brains by his new muse the Dark Lady of Sonnets.  The story follows the strange romance between the fair youth of historical debate and immortal bard.

As the story continued, I cared less for historical accuracy. The London plague backstory hid the origin and existence of the undead.Shakepeare and his Dark Lady follow the mystery and their own sexual attraction to discover its source and uncover the greatest conspiracy of the time.
In this scene as Will gazes upon the perfect chest of his beloved Dark Lady, he hears a shuffle sound just beyond his sight. As he takes in the smell of roses emanating from his lover's skin, he is mildly aware of the scent of decay. Then out of the darkness....

"Br," said a voice, "Br-br-brrrrrrr!!"


“Fate,” Will muttered, “is a vicious, vicious bitch.”

Handeland has crafted a mash up story of historical figures, romance, humor and paranormal mystery. She uses two point of views; first person for the Dark Lady and third person for the Bard.There seemed to be no reason for this. Neither perspective provided significant insight to the plot. The silly, well written, book reads quickly, will remind you of your British Literature class, and makes you laugh in spite of yourself.
I give it a solid B.