WHERE THE WILD THINGS BITE

A hypochondriac researcher, a vampire, and an unwashed pilot walk into a plane—and high jinks ensue in the remote Kentucky woods.

So begins the next installment in the Half-Moon Hollow series by Harper (Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs, 2009, etc.). Anna Whitfield, germaphobe, is delivering a rare book on shape-shifters to Half-Moon Hollow when she finds herself fending off the pilot-turned-mugger and fleeing the crashing craft. She's joined on her tramp to civilization by her only fellow passenger, the slick Finn Palmeroy, who claims to want to help her. Should she believe him? After all, vampires aren’t part of Anna’s usual cloistered, parasite-free life. Her suspicions about him lead her to strike out on her own on occasion but straight into other shape-shifting creatures, the pilot who is still on their trail, and even a nest of wasps. With a partnership for survival seeming prudent, Anna eventually tells Finn about the book she's carrying, her plagiarizing ex, and her clingy mom, while he opens up about his past (i.e., an unglamorous upbringing in 1940s Ohio). Some lake and shower-stall nookie later, she has to decide if Finn is trustworthy and whether she's ready to reconnect to the world in all its messiness. But just as she's poised to resolve the issue after handing over her precious cargo to series’ mainstay Jane Jameson-Nightengale, more comic mayhem erupts; this is to be expected of a universe that's inhabited by vampires requiring “orientation” after turning, shape-shifters prone to panic and poor judgment, and characters called Dick Cheney and D. Seever.

This series has gotten more appealing over time and will satisfy readers looking to bite into a paranormal romance flavored generously with dashes of humor.