Zen and the Art of Vampires by Katie MacAllister

Pia Thomason is a tourist on a single's tour of "Romantic Europe". Currently, she's in Iceland and *not* having a good time. The men on the tour with her are nothing to write home about, and the Icelandic men juat aren't very interesting to her.

But her female tour companion, Denise, is really giving Pia grief about being a reject, and Pia has to restrain herself from hauling off and slapping the other woman silly. When Pia disputes being a reject, Denise tells her to try her wiles on two hot and handsome men across the square, with the implication that Pia will strike no interest from either of them, then snickers when they look right past Pia.

Pia decides to call it a night, and go back to her room, but soon she meets the two men again and strikes decided interest from one of them, Alec. But when Pia bumps into someone, she finds a strange gem in her bag of books from the bookshop, and a man named Matthias calls her "Zorya" and says he is to be her husband. He is also Sacristan of the Brotherhood of Light.

Pia thinks he and his female companion are crazy and flees, but meets the woman who the moonstone was supposed to go to, a Frenchwoman named Anniki. Somehow, the moonstone gives Pia the power to see ghosts, who ask her to take them to "Ostri". Pia gives Anniki the moonstone and ends up spending the night with Alec, though his companion Kristoff and he kidnap her and make her go to the bookstore with them to prove her story that she is just a tourist.

In the morning, Alec is gone, and Pia finds Anniki dying in her hotel bathroom. Anniki passes the moonstone back to Pia and tells her to find justice for Anniki's death, which Pia swears. However, Matthias and his friend from the Brotherhood of Light tell Pia she must use her powers against "The Dark Ones", also known as Vampires.

But soon after, she is kidnapped by Kristoff, who is looking for Alec. Pia finds herself drawn to Kristoff, even though she knows he is grieving for his dead girlfriend, killed by the brotherhood for her "Crime" of loving Kristoff. Kristoff knows that Pia ia a Zorya, even if she doesn't have all the powers yet, and would be happy to kill her to keep all the other Dark Ones safe from her powers. But after she and Kristoff have wild sex together in a barn, she begins to wonder if she is losing her mind. It's Alec she's attracted to, not Kristoff!

But when Kristoff marries her in a trumped-up wedding ceremony, Pia isn't sure who to believe! Are the Dark Ones EVIL? Or is it the Brotherhood who are the evil ones, killing Vampires for no other reason than for who they are? And who can she believe?

Pia, accompanied by a growing entourage of Ghosts looking for Ostri must discover the truth and find out if she is a "Beloved", a woman who can return a vampire's soul to them simply by loving them. But with the vampires ready to kill her for being who and what she is, and the Brotherhood wanting to kill her because she has been tainted by having sex with a Dark One, can Pia find a way out of her predicament before one side or the other ends up killing her? And if she does get the powers of a Zorya, will she simply become a tool, dedicated to killing vampires, or will she be able to control the powers and do as she likes with them?

I liked this book. Pia is a strong character, very willful, but able to stand up to alot without crumpling or going mad. Like many American women, she's ashamed of what she sees as her imperfect body, and when she has sex with Alec, she doesn't want him to look at her lower body. None of that seems to matter when she makes lover (several times) with Kristoff, as they generally seem to get it on without removing all of their clothes.

Dark Ones are not your typical vampire, though they share many characteristics in common with romance novel vampires. They aren't dead or undead, but they do lack a soul. No mention is made of this lack of soul making them not appear in pictures or in mirrors, so I can't say what the status is on that score. Not being dead or undead, they are warm. But they also have telepathy with their beloved, and can do something like teleporting. They drink blood, but don't need food or drink (but can eat and drink- they don't need to go to the bathroom unless they have eaten or drunk) and sleep just like everyone else. They can also go out in the sunlight and have children, some of whom are born with souls, others not (and some with souls lose them later).

The sex in the book is hot, but not super-hot, and most of the action falls on Pia as she attempts to come to terms with being a Zorya, help the ghosts go to Ostri, or heaven, and survive the conflict between the Brotherhood and the Dark Ones. The book ends without a Happily Ever After for Pia, but there is a sequel in the works for her and Kristoff, which I am looking forward to. I recommend this book, and the series it's a part of as good reading for just about any time.