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Overview
CLASSIFIED ADS: RESTAURANTS SANGUINI'S: A VERY RARE RESTAURANT IS HIRING A CHEF DE CUISINE. DINNERS ONLY.
APPLY IN PERSON BETWEEN 2:00 AND 4:00 PM.
Quincie Morris has never felt more alone. Her parents are dead, and her hybrid-werewolf first love is threatening to embark on a rite of passage that will separate them forever. Then, as she and her uncle are about to unveil their hot vampire-themed restaurant, a brutal murder leaves them scrambling for a chef. Can Quincie transform their new hire into a culinary Dark Lord before opening night? Can he wow the crowd in his fake fangs, cheap cape, and red contact lenses — or is there more to this earnest face than meets the eye? As human and preternatural forces clash, a deadly love triangle forms, and the line between predator and prey begins to blur. Who’s playing whom? And how long can Quincie play along before she loses everything? TANTALIZE marks Cynthia Leitich Smith’s delicious debut as a preeminent author of dark fantasy.
Synopsis
CLASSIFIED ADS: RESTAURANTS SANGUINI'S: A VERY RARE RESTAURANT IS HIRING A CHEF DE CUISINE. DINNERS ONLY.
APPLY IN PERSON BETWEEN 2:00 AND 4:00 PM.
Quincie Morris has never felt more alone. Her parents are dead, and her hybrid-werewolf first love is threatening to embark on a rite of passage that will separate them forever. Then, as she and her uncle are about to unveil their hot vampire-themed restaurant, a brutal murder leaves them scrambling for a chef. Can Quincie transform their new hire into a culinary Dark Lord before opening night? Can he wow the crowd in his fake fangs, cheap cape, and red contact lenses — or is there more to this earnest face than meets the eye? As human and preternatural forces clash, a deadly love triangle forms, and the line between predator and prey begins to blur. Who’s playing whom? And how long can Quincie play along before she loses everything? TANTALIZE marks Cynthia Leitich Smith’s delicious debut as a preeminent author of dark fantasy.
Publishers Weekly
Following her parents' death, Quincie Morris was left in her Uncle Davidson's care, and the fate of the family's Italian restaurant was left in hers. Now 17, Quincie, who narrates, and her uncle have renamed the place Sanguini's. They've remodeled it with a "vampire theme," which they believe will sell in their Texas college town since "vampires are a fringe population, and Austin is a tolerant place." A month before the grand re-opening, however, the longtime chef is mauled to death in the kitchen, and the murder suspect is a werewolf. Quincie finds this problematic, since her lifelong best friend and love interest, Kieren, is a "hybrid werewolf" who traces his lupine heritage to the wolves that roamed Ireland with St. Patrick. A new chef shows up who may be talented but is also spooky, with red contact lenses, pale hair and a menu featuring sweetbreads, blood sausage and baby squirrels in honey cream sauce. Best known for her Native American stories, Smith uses advertisements, newspaper clippings and menu pages to liven the pace, and creates palpable tension in the novel's second half. Quincie's story hews closer to the campy Buffy the Vampire Slayerepisodes (e.g., " 'You ate the police?!' I exclaimed") than to the elegant romanticism of Stephenie Meyer's books, but horror fans will be hooked by Kieren's quiet, hirsute hunkiness, and Texans by the premise that nearly everybody in their capitol is a shapeshifter. Ages 14-up. (Mar.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationEditorials
Publishers Weekly
Following her parents' death, Quincie Morris was left in her Uncle Davidson's care, and the fate of the family's Italian restaurant was left in hers. Now 17, Quincie, who narrates, and her uncle have renamed the place Sanguini's. They've remodeled it with a "vampire theme," which they believe will sell in their Texas college town since "vampires are a fringe population, and Austin is a tolerant place." A month before the grand re-opening, however, the longtime chef is mauled to death in the kitchen, and the murder suspect is a werewolf. Quincie finds this problematic, since her lifelong best friend and love interest, Kieren, is a "hybrid werewolf" who traces his lupine heritage to the wolves that roamed Ireland with St. Patrick. A new chef shows up who may be talented but is also spooky, with red contact lenses, pale hair and a menu featuring sweetbreads, blood sausage and baby squirrels in honey cream sauce. Best known for her Native American stories, Smith uses advertisements, newspaper clippings and menu pages to liven the pace, and creates palpable tension in the novel's second half. Quincie's story hews closer to the campy Buffy the Vampire Slayerepisodes (e.g., " 'You ate the police?!' I exclaimed") than to the elegant romanticism of Stephenie Meyer's books, but horror fans will be hooked by Kieren's quiet, hirsute hunkiness, and Texans by the premise that nearly everybody in their capitol is a shapeshifter. Ages 14-up. (Mar.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationKLIATT -
To quote the review of the hardcover in KLIATT, March 2007: Quincie Morris is a typical 17-year-old girl living a typical life in Austin, Texas—except for the fact that her best friend (and seemingly unwitting love interest) is a hybrid werewolf named Keiren. Since Quincie's parents were killed in a car accident three years ago, and she moved in with her loveable but unreliable Uncle Davidson, Keiren has been both her solace and her frustration. Is he interested in being more than friends, or isn't he? Quincie can never tell. When Smith's tale opens, Quincie and her uncle are in the process of transforming Fat Lorenzo's, her parents' beloved but bankrupt family restaurant, into Sanguini's, a vampire-themed dining experience. The grand opening is just weeks away when the head chef is brutally murdered in what looks like a werewolf attack. Quincie is forced to deal with her uncomfortable suspicions of a suddenly distant Kieren while simultaneously training new chef Bradley and finalizing Sanguini's menu. To complicate matters further, Bradley is making no secret of his not-so-honest intentions, which she finds disconcertingly alluring. As Quincie struggles with her feelings toward Keiren and the older Bradley, she gets sucked into an increasingly dangerous world of wine, sensuality, and vampirism. By the time she begins to suspect who Bradley really is, she learns that it may already be too late to save her town, her relationship with Keiren … or herself. For those who enjoy the horror of the original Dracula or the heart-wrenching sorrow of Romeo and Juliet, Smith's book will be seen as a fresh, updated version of these timeless classics. The doomed love story betweenQuincie and Keiren is remarkably convincing and poignant, especially considering that this is Smith's fantasy debut. The otherwise-strong novel does falter at the ending, however, which occurs with blinding speed and fails to resolve several major conflicts, including hundreds of vampires who remain on the loose and intend to take over Texas. Ending notwithstanding, Smith proves with Tantalize that she possesses unquestionable narrative skills; she is alternatively gruesome and seductive, but never boring. Reviewer: Cara ChancellorChildren's Literature -
In Quincie Morris's world, werewolves and vampires are real. She is not scared though. After all, her best friend Kieren Morales is a hybrid-werewolf. Quincie's biggest fear is losing the family restaurant. Fat Lorenzo's is all she has left of her parents. But her Uncle D has the perfect solution. Fat Lorenzo's is going to become a vampire-themed restaurant. Shortly before reopening, however, a brutal murder robs the restaurant of its chef. The police are asking questions and everyone seems to think a werewolf is to blame. With all this at hand, Quincie and Uncle D are scrambling to find a replacement for the grand reopening. Out of all the applicants, Uncle D is convinced that Henry Johnson is the perfect choice. Quincie, at first, is not sure if he is up to the challenge. Henry's amazing culinary skills soon prove her wrong. The only problem is that Henry's talents go beyond his mere cooking skills. He is a vampire, and he has something to do with the murder. Cynthia Leitich Smith's dark fantasy creates an interesting yet recognizable secondary world set in Austin, Texas. Unfortunately, the reader is never completely allowed access to it. Limited to the boundaries of the text, Smith's world never feels sufficiently real. Any details that would expand its realism are brushed aside. In their place is a rushed melee of information that aggressively pushes the readers towards the last page. Unfortunately, the ending fails to satisfy.VOYA -
In the world of this novel, almost everyone in Austin, Texas, is a little bit weird. Seventeen-year-old narrator Quincie's parents are dead, and she lives with her Uncle Davidson and helps to run the family's Italian restaurant. Her best friend (and secret crush) is Kieran, a hybrid werewolf. When the restaurant starts losing money because of the appearance down the block of a chain restaurant with lots of parking, Quincie and Uncle D decide to transform theirs into a vampire-themed restaurant called Sanguini's. Just weeks before Sanguini's is due to open, their longtime chef, Vaggio, is brutally murdered, apparently by a werewolf. Grieving for Vaggio and worried about Kieran, Quincie nevertheless has to find a new chef who can cook and also entertain the guests as a vampire. When Henry Johnson shows up, it appears that her troubles are over. But of course, they are just beginning. This offbeat vampire romance mystery offers both comic and creepy elements. Sanguini's, for example, has two menus, one for predators and one for prey-chilled baby squirrels simmered in orange brandy, anyone? Occasional sloppy editing ("make due" for "make do") mars an otherwise entertaining, intriguing, and original story.School Library Journal
Gr 8 & Up - Orphaned at 13, Quince Morris, now 17, has been living with her Uncle Davidson and managing the family's restaurant. Her best friend and the love of her life, Kieran, is a werewolf in training who can not fully control the "monster" in him. As a result he will not return her affection for fear of the harm he could do to her. Within weeks of the grand reopening of the new vampire-themed restaurant, chaos breaks out. The chef is brutally murdered "werewolf style," thus making Kieran a possible suspect. Quince has a month to transform the newly hired chef, Brad, into Sanguini's vampire extraordinaire and at the same time deal with the fact that Kieran is abandoning her to join his own wolfpack and that Brad is making advances. Readers will be tantalized by this dark, romantic, and disturbing fantasy of vampires, werewolves, and a strong no-nonsense heroine. Fans of Stephenie Meyer and Annette Curtis Klause will eat it up.-Donna Rosenblum, Nassau Boces School Library System, NY
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information