Twenty-two year-old Jo is the sort of appealingly modest character who often gets embroiled in an outrageous murder investigation; cozy fans (and everybody) take note because Underdead establishes itself as an especially funny sample of the genre.

The story opens with Jo at a restaurant in her hometown of Long Beach, California. She teaches science to 8th graders, and now she and her coworkers are enduring a boring Christmas party. At her feisty friend Becky’s urging, Jo slips away to talk to a gorgeous man who has been staring at her. (And who wouldn’t stare at Jo with her wavy red-gold hair?) The man Will turns out to be a Jane Austen fan! Charmed, Jo follows him outside to talk in private – but he attacks her, and bites her on the neck!

Jo fights free, and manages to get home. But her problems are just beginning: Will is a vampire who wants to turn her into one, too. He’ll be coming back to finish the job.

Until then, however, Jo finds herself “underdead.” This is a little like a muffin finding itself “underdone”: Jo is almost a vampire but not quite there yet. Perhaps she can throw off the vampire taint and become human again. Or maybe she’ll be stuck with all of the vampire weaknesses (such as an atrocious allergy to sunlight) and none of the fun stuff (like, say, turning into a bat and flapping around).

Good golly, who is going to believe her? Well, fate has also brought an interesting man named Gavin to her door. He has his own reasons to hunt down vampires. Jo also finds herself consumed with a strong, instinctual attraction to Will. This isn’t going to endear her to Will’s jealous vampire mistress Natasha. What is a mild-mannered science teacher to do? First, she wasn’t dating anybody, and now she’s the center of a love-triangle!

To complicate matters further, just when Jo is managing to piece together the particulars of her newly underdead status, a popular teacher gets murdered during parent-teacher conference night! In Jo’s deserted classroom!

This looks real bad for Jo. It understandably freaks her out even more to see fake bite-wounds on the murder victim’s neck. Why would the murderer make it look like a vampire killed the victim? Does someone know about Jo? Is someone trying to frame her? Jo had better add “solving the mystery” to her to-do list along with “figuring out my vampire traits”.

This is a funny and fast-paced read that will delight anyone who has ever enjoyed a cozy mystery, a comedy, a romance, or a vampire novel. Jo’s interactions with her mother are especially hilarious, including the scene where Jo makes up a rather underwhelming career for Will to throw her snobbish mother off the matchmaking trail.

Underdead is available as an eBook at at Cerridwen Press. Stay tuned for a paperback release and an Amazon link in the near future.