I think I’m finally getting a handle on what chick-lit is. The female protagonist is supposed to be ditsy but gung-ho. Studly, dudly, well-hung male is the job-description for the male protagonist. They fall passionately in love fighting it and each other all the way. Add to this cauldron of passion action and humor and you have chick-lit??????

While I’m not the biggest fan of the genre, I have read some. In my opinion most of it is so, so. Some of it is actually kind of fun while being really frustrating at the same time. The female/male leads are so ….

Katie MacAlister seems to be a big name on the chick-lit arena. It seems well-deserved. I’ve read her “Aisling Grey” series and a book called “The Last of the Red-Hot Vampires”.

We meet Aisling Grey in “You Slay Me“. She comes off as somewhat of an air-head right off the bat. As her first assignment for her uncle Aisling travels to Paris to deliver a medieval object. Upon reaching the delivery address, she finds the recipient murdered and meets her male protagonist, Drake. Implicated in the circumstances of two murders, Aisling, the demon she summons for help (and subsequently can’t get rid of) named Jim, and Drake find themselves caught up in a web of lies and confusion that could well result in the demon lords of hell ruling the mortal world.

Aisling and Drake are pretty much what the books are about, with quite a bit of confusion added in. In “Fire Me Up” Aisling ends up in Hungary, having to receive her punishment from the Green dragon sept, find a guardian mentor and save the world from destruction. As we go on to “Light My Fire“, we see that Drake and Aisling still haven’t resolved their relationship. Aisling is still struggling to figure out her powers and has to save the world from imps and demon lords. When we come to “Holy Smokes” Drake and Aisling are getting ready for marriage. But life is never as simple as it might seem, at least not in the super-natural world and Aisling’s new status as demon lord has to be resolved. Being a guardian, wyvern’s mate and demon lord are just not compatible occupations.

I liked these books. They were light, fun and at times quite erotic.

“The Last of the Red-Hot Vampires” was along the same lines. Along comes a ditsy, non-believing female onto the super-natural scene and meets the incredibly hot man of her dreams, Theo. Theo loses his nephilim status and gets turned into a soulless vampire who needs blood, blood, blood. Portia’s job is to save his soul and herself from whatever the super-natural world has to throw at them.

Where the Aisling books were a fun read, Vampires was more work. The humor was off and the characters weren’t of the quality of the Aisling series. My advice would be to go with the Aisling books. There the author delivers what the genre promises.