18 MAY 2020 — Rewrite of review (08 Sep 18) when originally titled “BECOMING THE SPOILS.”

“HE’S GIVING ME THAT LOOK AGAIN. THE ONE THAT SAYS HE WISHES HE’D SNAPPED MY NECK AND KEPT THE RAT AROUND FOR INTELLIGENT CONVERSATION.”

OH, MY GAWD!
I LAUGHED MY A$$ OFF!
I’VE NEVER READ ANYTHING SO SLAP-FUNNY IN ALL MY LIFE!
THIS CHARACTER NEVER GIVES UP!
HIS MOUTH [and brain] NEVER STOP EITHER!

Journalist Frank, is stuck in a cellar with vampire Viktor, and he couldn’t be any more entertaining than when he gets MAD at the vampire for NOT sucking him dry — his blood, I mean.
Or, ever more hilarious when he finds out there are (oh my gawd) RATS — OF ALL THINGS — in the cellar with them too!
The VAMPIRE?
He’s not so worried about.
But RATS?!?
Now, THAT’S a different story altogether!

Gawd this guy just doesn’t give up!
Frank, was looking for a story on proving vampires are real and then, manages to get himself thrown into (& locked up tight in) a cellar with a indeed & all too real and VERY hungry vampire! It seems this vampire (it just so happens) has not eaten [been fed?] in months.

Frank gets upset when he thinks he is going to be left down there with Viktor (to DIE right along side him) because Viktor IS doing just that — DYING!
He had been thrown into the cellar months ago, as punishment for upsetting the head vampire, and now he is very slowly (& very painfully) wasting away.

So Frank decides he, himself, should be turned into a vampire.
He figures he’ll just die too quickly — or, is it he’ll die waay toooo slowwly? — as a human.

Then Frank gets upset again, when Viktor seems like he’s going to “turn” him but then, in the middle of starting to do it . . . at the Really Very Last Possible Moment . . . he decides not to bite him.
Apparently, it seems Viktor doesn’t think this is such a good idea, after all.

But, Frank’s not a “raging-angry” type of upset at this.
He’s a “running-off-at-the-mouth-funny” type of upset.

I won’t give it away, but it’s a good thing Viktor was in a better frame of mind than Frank was, at that time.
That’s all I can say.
And then, it was just sooo tooo funny, when all of a sudden the cellar door opens, right in the middle of the both them trying to escape out the sky light!
I literally almost fell over laughing so hard!
I ABSOLUTELY LOVE JL MERROW’S DRY HUMOR!

Honestly, you should love this little quickie!
If you love quirky, dry, slap-stick kind of humor you should hopefully, be picking yourself up from the floor, too — just as I was!
JL Merrow does such a great job with Frank’s non-stop witty character — really, it just slayed me!

Gawd! I didn’t realize I really needed such a good laugh!
This really is a FEEL-GOOD story.
So HILARIOUS!
So INVIGORATING!

I’ve read many other books by this author, JL Merrow, and I thought every single one of them to be excellent.
One of the more hilarious is:
“BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED” (fall off “the bed” funny!)

TREAT YOURSELF to “BLOODLUST AND BYLINES.”

It is my opinion that you absolutely just CANNOT GO WRONG with this 36 page, 30 minute read!
Maybe 35 minute, I’m a bit slow.

AND JL MERROW?
THANK YOU!
I SINCERELY MEAN THAT —
I HONESTLY THANK YOU!

MTULIPK