Betsy the Vampire Queen

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Betsy the Vampire Queen, properly known as the Undead series, is a Paranormal Romance book series by MaryJanice Davidson about Betsy Taylor. Betsy loses her job and is killed in the same day (her 30th birthday), but awakes undead in a funeral home. After attempting multiple times to kill herself, Betsy realizes that she is a vampire — not only a vampire, but queen of the vampires.

The series is a humorous jab at many popular vampire stereotypes. While the vampires are played completely serious, Betsy's bubbly personality takes the wind out of their sails.

The books are, in chronological order:

• Undead and Unwed
• Undead and Unemployed
• Undead and Unappreciated
• Undead and Unpopular
• Undead and Uneasy
• Undead and Unworthy
• Undead and Unwelcome
• Undead and Unfinished
• Undead and Undermined
• Betsy the Vampire , the first four books collected into one anthology.
• Betsy Bride of the Vampire, a collection of books five through seven, plus the short story Dead and Loving It.

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Tropes used in Betsy the Vampire Queen include:

• A Chat with Satan: Betsy regularly has these. Satan apparently resembles Lena Olin.
• All Women Love Shoes: Betsy isn't all women but she's neurotically obsessed with them.
• Anti-Anti-Christ: Laura, the Devil's Daughter. Mostly.
• Artifact of Doom: The Book of the Dead.
  • Betsy's first engagement ring, as well. It grants your wishes... in the most destructive way it can.
• Badass Normal: The Blade Warriors, a group of teenage vampire hunters.
• Because Destiny Says So: The Book of the Dead pretty much predicts every single plot development.
• Big Bad: Nostro. Though he dies very quickly.
  • Undead and Unfinished introduces a new one: Betsy's future self.
• Black Best Friend: Jessica.
• Blonde Republican Sex Kitten: Betsy.
• Creator Provincialism: Minnesota is the heart of the vampire world before Betsy takes over.
• Deadpan Snarker: Sinclair.
• The Devil: Appears as a middle-aged woman.
• Emergency Transformation: Subverted. Jessica refuses to become a vampire when faced with cancer.
• Expy: Sinclair bears a lot of resemblance, personality-wise, to the butler from MJD's earlier Alaskan Royalty series.
• Fang Thpeak: Betsy Taylor thpeakth like thith.
• First-Person Smartass: Betsy herself.
• Friendly Neighborhood Vampires: Betsy herself. A large portion of her problems comes from attempting to make every other vampire in the world into one.
• Future Me Scares Me: Future Betsy is mighty scary indeed in Undead and Unfinished.
• Gender Blender Name: Betsy throws Sinclair's opera CD's from his car in revenge. Leading to (paraphrased):

Betsy: Andrea Bocelli? Who the hell is she?

• Genius Ditz: Betsy at vampiredom.
• Ghostly Goals: The Queen of the Vampires can see the dead. They want stuff done.
• God Save Us From the Queen: How other vampires view Betsy.
• Good People Have Good Sex: Sinclair and Betsy, though that may be "Vampires have good sex."
• The Grovel: When Betsy turns temporarily evil in Undead and Unappreciated, she attacks her friends. Afterward she tries to grovel but she gets sidetracked into an argument over how much of the possession was her fault.

Betsy: Hmm, my groveling wasn't going quite the way I planned.

• Handsome Lech: Sinclair pre-Betsy.
• Hellfire: Laura is capable of generating this.
• Heroic BSOD: Sinclair in the second book, when Betsy's been staked and, they think, killed. As Father Markus said, "It would have been touching if it wasn't so terribly, terribly sad."
• Holy Burns Evil: Vampires are hurt by holy items.
• Insulted Awake: In order to get Betsy out of a near-comatose state, Eric (her fiance) shouts, "I'm terribly sorry, but I cannot go through with the wedding!" She snaps and begins to yell at him before realizing what he was trying to do.
• Kiss of the Vampire: Played straight; the kiss of a vampire makes people deeply in love with the vampire.
• Lesbian Vampire: Tina is technically bisexual and, as such, has emotional sway over both men and women (but not over gay men). However, she prefers women, which causes Betsy a bit of trouble early on.
• Motor Mouth: Betsy in a nutshell.
• My Girl Is Not a Slut: Betsy's friend keeps a calendar of her sexual activity to try and encourage her to get more action; Sinclair has daily orgies with his three girlfriends on black silk sheets.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Lampshaded on several occasions with Betsy.
• Not Himself: Betsy struggles with this due to fasting, The Book of the Dead, and evil future selves.
• One Steve Limit: Subverted with the Ant and Antonia.
• Our Vampires Are Different: The majority are extremely weak, vulnerable to nearly all the traditional weaknesses and holy items especially. Betsy, as Queen of the Vampires, is immune to most of the traditional weaknesses.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: They all live together in Cape Cod and some of them are psychic.
• Pet Homosexual: Marc.
• Screw Destiny: Betsy attempts this, usually to miserable failure.
  • It becomes a major plotline after Undead and Unfinished. Where Betsy must keep herself from becoming an Evil Overlord.
• Smith Will Suffice: A running gag. Vampires cannot bear to hear Christ's name or any prayer, as it causes them physical pain. Betsy's tendency to take the Lord's name in vain is therefore unfortunate given her relationship with the vampire Sinclair. So every time she exclaims, "Jesus Christ!" Sinclair winces and says, "I've asked you not to call me that."
• Stable Time Loop: Over the course of Undead and Unfinished, Betsy becomes part of several. Subverted near the end, when she meets her evil future self. The future self acts like this is the case at first... and then Betsy completely deviates from her future self's memories, throwing her off.
• Tome of Eldritch Lore: The Book of the Dead, again. The reason Betsy doesn't just speed-read it and know everything? Reading more than two or three pages at a time turns you into a monstrous Jerkass. This might seem minor, except that when you turn a vampire into a jerkass... (In Betsy's case, it involved nearly killing Jessica.)
• Uncle Pennybags: Jessica.
• Vampire Fiction
• Vampire Monarch: Betsy and Eric.
• Waking Up At the Morgue: Betsy has one of these moments, though it's a funeral home.
• Wicked Stepmother: Antonia Taylor, Betsy's stepmother. She pursued a married man, destroying his marriage, and tried to turn him against his then-teenaged daughter. She wanted him to surrender full custody to his ex-wife, and when that failed, to send Betsy to military school. Her efforts continued into Betsy's thirties, when after Betsy's funeral, she eats a celebratory lobster dinner and books a cruise. She is even, at one point in the backstory, possessed by Lucifer for a year, and no one notices because she's so nasty by nature. In Undead and Unworthy After her death, The Ant comes back to haunt Betsy as a ghost because during life, her sole purpose was to torment Betsy. Part of this new torment includes walking in on Betsy and her husband during lovemaking, and making no apology or attempt to leave.
• Your Vampires Suck: How Betsy reacts to the Nostro dominated vampires of the world.
  • Amusingly, Betsy is largely a traditional vampire with a stake through the heart immobilizing her and sunlight making her fall asleep. It's other vampires who are more traditional Hollywood Vampires with massive weaknesses to sunlight and holy items.