One of my favorite authors of all time is Janet Evanovich. I first encountered her Stephanie Plum series while I was in the Peace Corps in 2003 and a fellow volunteer got her collection from home. When it was my turn at the lending library, I could not put her books down. Alas, that series is primarily off-topic (an inept bounty hunter in Trenton isn’t really Geek Speak material), and so I have not been able to include Janet Evanovich in book reviews. However, in September 2010, she came out with a spin-off of to that series starring her only supernatural character.

Diesel is an Unmentionable, which is a very convenient title, as it doesn’t really explain what how he does what he does, or the full range of his powers. Essentially, he finds other Unmentionables with different powers that get in trouble. He first shows up in a Stephanie Plum holiday book centered around Christmas, and has become a regular feature of all the holiday-themed books in that series. All that we know about him is that he is mysterious, powerful and (of course) devilishly handsome.

In Wicked Appetite, Diesel is sent by his employer BUM (Board of Unmentionable Marshalls) to track down his evil cousin Wulf Grimoire (I wish I was making that name up!) and find the physical manifestation of the seven deadly sins. Essentially there are seven stones, each containing the power of one of the seven deadly sins. Collectively, they are known as the SALIGIA stones, which is an acronym of the sins’ names in Latin. If the stones are ever merged into one, it will unleash hell on earth. Each of the stones are hidden in a secret place with a different guardian. However, rumor has it that all the stones are now located in the vicinity of Salem, Massachusetts.

Which leads us to our heroine (and narrator) Lizzy Tucker, cupcake baker and newly awakened Unmentionable. Unfortunately, it seems that her power is locating and identifying the SALIGIA artifacts. After inheriting a house from her odd Aunt Ophelia, she moves from New York to Salem and gets a job at a bakery. After meeting Wulf, she is spotted by Diesel, who moves in to protect her. This also leads to her letting in a stray cat, a monkey named Carl and all sorts of mischief in her life. As Diesel and Lizzy go on the chase for the stone representing Gluttony, all sorts of hell breaks loose and Lizzy must adapt to her new reality quickly or lose the battle to save the world.

This book is classic Janet Evanovich. Not only because she is recycling characters here -- Diesel and Carl the Monkey reunite in this series -- we also get a hilariously inept heroine, a handsome and mysterious love interest and a lot of slapstick comedy. There are also references to a lot of greasy, sugar-laden food as well as some serious unresolved sexual tension, both of which are staples of Janet Evanovich’s books. I read this book in a little over four hours, which makes it a pretty easy read for book of about 300 pages. One of the things I enjoyed about this book is that I could read it over and over again, at the beach, at the hairdresser, and still find it enjoyable. There is some brain candy out there that is not nearly as pleasurable, and this is exactly what I crave in my fluffier books. I plan on reading (and reviewing!) all of her books in this series and seeing how things turn out for Lizzy and Diesel.

There were things however, that struck me the wrong way. A big one for me is repetitiveness. This book seems like a supernatural remake of the Stephanie Plum series, and I feel like the Lizzy character is too much like Stephanie. It’s like the book version of watching an actor play himself in role after role. Jack Nicholson might be a “great” actor, but whenever I see him perform, I always see Jack, and not the character he is playing. This book is a little like this. Whenever I see these characters, I’m always reminded that they are Janet Evanovich’s. It would be nice if she had given us a character in Lizzie that was a little fresher. I do look forward to seeing how she makes these characters different in the future.

Janet Evanovich has also painted herself into a bit of a corner with one subplot. Essentially, the storyline goes that if two Unmentionables have sex, then one of them will lose their powers. Which is great for the Unresolved Sexual Tension between Diesel and Lizzy, but I’m not sure how the readers will feel about seven books with no possibility of nookie. Hello, Moonlighting! We aren’t reading Lynn Kurland here, and this audience likes their protagonists to get some.

One thing I did NOT like (In all caps!! With exclamations!!) was the subplot of Lizzie possibly losing her powers due to rape. At one point Lizzie is knocked unconscious in the presence of Wulf and his minion. When she wakes up, she has reason to believe that she has lost her Unmentionable power. While Lizzie felt horrified, I felt that the characters dismissed it as if it wouldn’t have even been rape. Additionally, Diesel simply stated that it never would have happened because Wulf needed her. (I guess if he hadn’t, it would have been fair game? And no big deal?) If Janet Evanovich wasn’t going to treat this with any sort of gravity, then she never should have inserted it in the first place. Her books aren’t the place where I would expect to find a storyline like this, and the underwhelming treatment of it was upsetting.
 
Nitpicking aside, if you love easy reading, fun books with some great slapstick humor, give this book a shot. I will warn you, though: by the end you will be craving cupcakes like no one’s business!

   -- Sara Paige