Wicked Game

Wicked Game by Jeri Smith-Ready
Summary from Goodreads:
Late-night radio you can sink your teeth into....
Recovering con artist Ciara Griffin is trying to live the straight life, even if it means finding a (shudder!) real job. She takes an internship at a local radio station, whose late-night time-warp format features 1940s blues, 60s psychedelia, 80s Goth, and more, all with an uncannily authentic flair. Ciara soon discovers how the DJs maintain their cred: they're vampires, stuck forever in the eras in which they were turned.
Ciara's first instinct, as always, is to cut and run. But communications giant Skywave wants to buy WMMP and turn it into just another hit-playing clone. Without the station--and the link it provides to their original Life Times--the vampires would "fade," becoming little more than mindless ghosts of the past. Suddenly a routine corporate takeover becomes a matter of life and un-death.
To boost ratings and save the lives of her strange new friends, Ciara re-brands the station as "WVMP, the Lifeblood of Rock 'n' Roll." In the ultimate con, she hides the DJs' vampire nature in plain sight, disguising the bloody truth as a marketing gimmick. WVMP becomes the hottest thing around--next to Ciara's complicated affair with grunge vamp Shane McAllister. But the "gimmick" enrages a posse of ancient and powerful vampires who aren't so eager to be brought into the light. Soon the stakes are higher--and the perils graver--than any con game Ciara's ever played....

My take:
This book was so much fun to read! First of all, I have to express how much I love this series for the simple fact that the titles of the books (and chapters) are also the titles to awesome songs.  I really enjoyed Wicked Game because it was exactly what I was in the mood for. The main character is a con artist named Ciara who is trying to go straight - or she is trying to convince herself to go straight. She ends up with a job at a radio station run by vampires. These vamps are pretty different from what we have gotten used to lately. While they are beautiful and strong, they are also "stuck" in the time period in which they were made into vampires and feel helpless in a world that is changing around them. Some of them develop coping mechanisms which seem to be OCD in nature. One alphabetizes everything and  another has to count things (yes, there is a joke about Sesame Street's The Count). But the vampires that Ciara works with  share a love for the music of their time periods and so make wonderful djs and each plays the music they love from their time. There is a music playlist in the book and I will admit that I set up a playlist in my mp3 player and listened while reading. There is also a great con story - and who doesn't like to see the "bad guys" get conned? This was a super fun and fast read and I can't wait to get the next book in the series Bad to the Bone. I hate too many spoilers, but if you are in the mood for a fun, rockin' read, check out Wicked Game.
Rating: 4 of 5