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Predators or Prey?
Book by Harper, Scott
224 pages, Paperback
First published July 10, 2008
3 people want to read
About the author
Scott Harper
18 books35 followersScott Harper is the bestselling, award-winning author of more than 30 published short stories and several novels. There has been talk, from several fronts, about turning his fourth novel, "Predators or Prey?", the first book in his Wendy Markland series, into a live-action project. Interest from a movie producer has also been voiced about turning his bestselling, award-winning eighth novel, "Quintana Roo, Yucatan", into a film.
Harper grew up in Ohio, and graduated from Marysville High School in 1993, and began screenwriting in 2007, after the publication of several short stories and novels. He has worked on projects for James Tucker Productions and 11th Dimension Films. He is currently involved with several projects, covering literature, film and comic books. He is also a contributing writer for the sasquatch blog known as "Bigtruth".
Scott is very happily married to bestselling paranormal author Desirée Lee. Together, they have a wonderful little girl, and are working jointly on several projects. Those projects include multiple books, as well as the hit werewolf webcomic "MoonWraith". "MoonWraith" updates each and every Monday with a new page.
More information about his work can be found on his website: www.scottharper.net
Harper grew up in Ohio, and graduated from Marysville High School in 1993, and began screenwriting in 2007, after the publication of several short stories and novels. He has worked on projects for James Tucker Productions and 11th Dimension Films. He is currently involved with several projects, covering literature, film and comic books. He is also a contributing writer for the sasquatch blog known as "Bigtruth".
Scott is very happily married to bestselling paranormal author Desirée Lee. Together, they have a wonderful little girl, and are working jointly on several projects. Those projects include multiple books, as well as the hit werewolf webcomic "MoonWraith". "MoonWraith" updates each and every Monday with a new page.
More information about his work can be found on his website: www.scottharper.net
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 19, 2012
3.5 stars
Wendy Markland and Jacob Iverson make their living travelling around the country conning people into believing they are vampire hunters. They wander around at night in cemeteries, coming back the next morning and telling their marks they have taken care of the vampire. It all works out well for them until they actually encounter real vampires, real vampires who know who they are and are out to get them.
Now Wendy and Jacob, along with Wendy’s nine year old brother, are on the run trying to stay one step away from the vampires. Along the way they hook up with a mysterious stranger who tells them he is a real vampire hunter himself and he knows who they are. They are unsure if they should trust him but are running out of options, so they reluctantly agree to team with him. Wendy and Jacob now don’t know if they are predators or prey. Will they survive, and who is this mysterious hunter that knows so much about them?
When we meet Wendy and Jacob they are the sleaziest of the sleaze, bilking poor unsuspecting people out of their money, and not even thinking about it. They drag her young brother Glen around the country with them, living in hotels and even using him in their con. I didn’t like them very much in the beginning and I have to admit those feelings had not changed much by the time I finished the book.
Jacob is the most self-centered, cowardly, no good piece of work you’ve ever met. He only wants Wendy for one thing, and really doesn’t care if she knows it. He has moments of being a slightly real human being, but they are few and far between. Wendy has a great body, a fact she is well aware of, and uses to her advantage any time she can. She does try to keep the peace when Jacob’s temper gets the best of him, which happens often. She knows what they are doing is wrong, and I think she might want to make it good, until it all goes wrong. She does grow a pair toward the end, and I did begin to like her a little bit, but I’m not sure I can forgive her for lugging her little brother around and exposing him to their way of life.
There is a truly bad vampire named Charles Cory who will make your skin crawl, and I felt like I had to take a bath each time we met him. This guy was evil to the tenth power. We have the mysterious Morgan Teague, a man with a secret. I’ll be honest, I figured out what his secret was about 2 pages after we met him, but it took Wendy and Jacob a little longer.
This book doesn’t give us the beautiful young vampires, these guys are nasty, decaying and evil. I did like that twist, it’s refreshing to see a different take on the myth every now and again.
I had a bit of problem while thinking about this review, I just didn’t know if I liked this book or not. On the one hand, I disliked Wendy and Jacob from beginning to end; it’s hard to say you like a book when you can’t find a character you like. On the other hand, I did feel extreme emotion while reading it, mostly dislike, but emotion is emotion.
The ending sets us up for a sequel and will I read that, yes I will. I have to see where the author is taking us, and if Wendy and Jacob become better people. All I can say is, you’ll have to read the book for yourself to decide, I’m on the fence.
Reviewed as a Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team
Wendy Markland and Jacob Iverson make their living travelling around the country conning people into believing they are vampire hunters. They wander around at night in cemeteries, coming back the next morning and telling their marks they have taken care of the vampire. It all works out well for them until they actually encounter real vampires, real vampires who know who they are and are out to get them.
Now Wendy and Jacob, along with Wendy’s nine year old brother, are on the run trying to stay one step away from the vampires. Along the way they hook up with a mysterious stranger who tells them he is a real vampire hunter himself and he knows who they are. They are unsure if they should trust him but are running out of options, so they reluctantly agree to team with him. Wendy and Jacob now don’t know if they are predators or prey. Will they survive, and who is this mysterious hunter that knows so much about them?
When we meet Wendy and Jacob they are the sleaziest of the sleaze, bilking poor unsuspecting people out of their money, and not even thinking about it. They drag her young brother Glen around the country with them, living in hotels and even using him in their con. I didn’t like them very much in the beginning and I have to admit those feelings had not changed much by the time I finished the book.
Jacob is the most self-centered, cowardly, no good piece of work you’ve ever met. He only wants Wendy for one thing, and really doesn’t care if she knows it. He has moments of being a slightly real human being, but they are few and far between. Wendy has a great body, a fact she is well aware of, and uses to her advantage any time she can. She does try to keep the peace when Jacob’s temper gets the best of him, which happens often. She knows what they are doing is wrong, and I think she might want to make it good, until it all goes wrong. She does grow a pair toward the end, and I did begin to like her a little bit, but I’m not sure I can forgive her for lugging her little brother around and exposing him to their way of life.
There is a truly bad vampire named Charles Cory who will make your skin crawl, and I felt like I had to take a bath each time we met him. This guy was evil to the tenth power. We have the mysterious Morgan Teague, a man with a secret. I’ll be honest, I figured out what his secret was about 2 pages after we met him, but it took Wendy and Jacob a little longer.
This book doesn’t give us the beautiful young vampires, these guys are nasty, decaying and evil. I did like that twist, it’s refreshing to see a different take on the myth every now and again.
I had a bit of problem while thinking about this review, I just didn’t know if I liked this book or not. On the one hand, I disliked Wendy and Jacob from beginning to end; it’s hard to say you like a book when you can’t find a character you like. On the other hand, I did feel extreme emotion while reading it, mostly dislike, but emotion is emotion.
The ending sets us up for a sequel and will I read that, yes I will. I have to see where the author is taking us, and if Wendy and Jacob become better people. All I can say is, you’ll have to read the book for yourself to decide, I’m on the fence.
Reviewed as a Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team
August 3, 2016
Scott Harper has begun a new vampire series where we meet Josh Iverson and Wendy Markland. They travel the country with Wendy’s 9 year old brother Glen, in a van with its interior decked out with all sorts of cheap props and call themselves Vampire Hunters.
Their new patsies are an elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Holdridge. The con artists are charging the couple Ten Thousand Dollars because the Holdridges thought they saw a vampire in their town. This is how Wendy and Josh work, bilking the public with their fears. The older couple watch as the two con artists grab garlic, crosses, stakes and other various sundries from the back of their van and go out for the evening ‘to hunt.’
The town’s cemetery seems like a good place to start and possibly be seen by other townspeople so their whereabouts will make it ‘seem’ like they are working hard. You can almost feel the trees closing in on you as they come to a wrought iron fence surrounding the cemetery to climb. Once inside, they come upon a group of the town's teenagers partying - and then they meet what they never expected, real Vampires.
Taken to an empty dilapidated old farm house in the middle of the forest we meet the evil Charles Cory and vampire followers called his "cultus." By some miracle of luck, the two would-be hunters get away, killing many of the vampires. They return to the Holdridge home, only wanting to get Glen and run for their lives. Every part of them is in turmoil as they have to finally deal with the horrors they have learned tonight: Vampires are real.
Scott Harper has written a vampire story filled with fear and horror. We follow Wendy and Josh from town to town. They, in turn, are being followed by the evil vampires whose wish it is to either kill them or turn them. You would think that this situation would make the couple closer, but now Wendy begins to see Josh with different eyes and not in a great light. She sees how she continued to overlook how weak and untruthful he is.
While the scenes of running from town to town one step ahead of their enemy are page turning, our author eventually brings us to the big show down. Mr. Harper keeps up the suspenseful pace, and we never know what sundown will bring for our guys as we get deeper and deeper to the final scenes.
My only complaint with this book was the author’s treatment of Wendy. He describes her as attractive in his original description. Slim, red head and well endowed. But I couldn’t get my head wrapped around the fact that every time she took her clothes off to take a shower or change, she was always examining herself in front of a mirror, talking about her body parts, like she was a total narcissist. Oh, and by the way, during their travels, their car was vandalized and had to be towed to a garage. Yep, our Wendy fell in love with the garage mechanic after knowing him a day and a half. I felt the author treated her like she was Wendy the narcissistic bimbo vampire hunter for a good part of the book.
Wendy did redeem herself. She wanted to avenge all the people the vampires killed, and actually made Josh step up and be a man at the end instead of the insensitive wimp he became. If it sounds like I hated the book, you are wrong. The book was good for me, and will be for all fans who love a blood and gore vamp story.
3.75 star
Review by Gloria Lakritz
Sr Reviewer and Review Chair of the Paranormal Romance Guild
Their new patsies are an elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Holdridge. The con artists are charging the couple Ten Thousand Dollars because the Holdridges thought they saw a vampire in their town. This is how Wendy and Josh work, bilking the public with their fears. The older couple watch as the two con artists grab garlic, crosses, stakes and other various sundries from the back of their van and go out for the evening ‘to hunt.’
The town’s cemetery seems like a good place to start and possibly be seen by other townspeople so their whereabouts will make it ‘seem’ like they are working hard. You can almost feel the trees closing in on you as they come to a wrought iron fence surrounding the cemetery to climb. Once inside, they come upon a group of the town's teenagers partying - and then they meet what they never expected, real Vampires.
Taken to an empty dilapidated old farm house in the middle of the forest we meet the evil Charles Cory and vampire followers called his "cultus." By some miracle of luck, the two would-be hunters get away, killing many of the vampires. They return to the Holdridge home, only wanting to get Glen and run for their lives. Every part of them is in turmoil as they have to finally deal with the horrors they have learned tonight: Vampires are real.
Scott Harper has written a vampire story filled with fear and horror. We follow Wendy and Josh from town to town. They, in turn, are being followed by the evil vampires whose wish it is to either kill them or turn them. You would think that this situation would make the couple closer, but now Wendy begins to see Josh with different eyes and not in a great light. She sees how she continued to overlook how weak and untruthful he is.
While the scenes of running from town to town one step ahead of their enemy are page turning, our author eventually brings us to the big show down. Mr. Harper keeps up the suspenseful pace, and we never know what sundown will bring for our guys as we get deeper and deeper to the final scenes.
My only complaint with this book was the author’s treatment of Wendy. He describes her as attractive in his original description. Slim, red head and well endowed. But I couldn’t get my head wrapped around the fact that every time she took her clothes off to take a shower or change, she was always examining herself in front of a mirror, talking about her body parts, like she was a total narcissist. Oh, and by the way, during their travels, their car was vandalized and had to be towed to a garage. Yep, our Wendy fell in love with the garage mechanic after knowing him a day and a half. I felt the author treated her like she was Wendy the narcissistic bimbo vampire hunter for a good part of the book.
Wendy did redeem herself. She wanted to avenge all the people the vampires killed, and actually made Josh step up and be a man at the end instead of the insensitive wimp he became. If it sounds like I hated the book, you are wrong. The book was good for me, and will be for all fans who love a blood and gore vamp story.
3.75 star
Review by Gloria Lakritz
Sr Reviewer and Review Chair of the Paranormal Romance Guild
June 9, 2012
3.5***'Stars
Wendy Markland and Jacob Iverson make their living travelling around the country conning people into believing they are vampire hunters. They wander around at night in cemeteries, coming back the next morning and telling their marks they have taken care of the vampire. It all works out well for them until they actually encounter real vampires, real vampires who know who they are and are out to get them.
Now Wendy and Jacob, along with Wendy’s nine year old brother, are on the run trying to stay one step away from the vampires. Along the way they hook up with a mysterious stranger who tells them he is a real vampire hunter himself and he knows who they are. They are unsure if they should trust him but are running out of options, so they reluctantly agree to team with him. Wendy and Jacob now don’t know if they are predators or prey. Will they survive, and who is this mysterious hunter that knows so much about them?
When we meet Wendy and Jacob they are the sleaziest of the sleaze, bilking poor unsuspecting people out of their money, and not even thinking about it. They drag her young brother Glen around the country with them, living in hotels and even using him in their con. I didn’t like them very much in the beginning and I have to admit those feelings had not changed much by the time I finished the book.
Jacob is the most self-centered, cowardly, no good piece of work you’ve ever met. He only wants Wendy for one thing, and really doesn’t care if she knows it. He has moments of being a slightly real human being, but they are few and far between. Wendy has a great body, a fact she is well aware of, and uses to her advantage any time she can. She does try to keep the peace when Jacob’s temper gets the best of him, which happens often. She knows what they are doing is wrong, and I think she might want to make it good, until it all goes wrong. She does grow a pair toward the end, and I did begin to like her a little bit, but I’m not sure I can forgive her for lugging her little brother around and exposing him to their way of life.
There is a truly bad vampire named Charles Cory who will make your skin crawl, and I felt like I had to take a bath each time we met him. This guy was evil to the tenth power. We have the mysterious Morgan Teague, a man with a secret. I’ll be honest, I figured out what his secret was about 2 pages after we met him, but it took Wendy and Jacob a little longer.
This book doesn’t give us the beautiful young vampires, these guys are nasty, decaying and evil. I did like that twist, it’s refreshing to see a different take on the myth every now and again.
I had a bit of problem while thinking about this review, I just didn’t know if I liked this book or not. On the one hand, I disliked Wendy and Jacob from beginning to end; it’s hard to say you like a book when you can’t find a character you like. On the other hand, I did feel extreme emotion while reading it, mostly dislike, but emotion is emotion.
The ending sets us up for a sequel and will I read that, yes I will. I have to see where the author is taking us, and if Wendy and Jacob become better people. All I can say is, you’ll have to read the book for yourself to decide, I’m on the fence.
Review by Penelope Adams
Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team
Wendy Markland and Jacob Iverson make their living travelling around the country conning people into believing they are vampire hunters. They wander around at night in cemeteries, coming back the next morning and telling their marks they have taken care of the vampire. It all works out well for them until they actually encounter real vampires, real vampires who know who they are and are out to get them.
Now Wendy and Jacob, along with Wendy’s nine year old brother, are on the run trying to stay one step away from the vampires. Along the way they hook up with a mysterious stranger who tells them he is a real vampire hunter himself and he knows who they are. They are unsure if they should trust him but are running out of options, so they reluctantly agree to team with him. Wendy and Jacob now don’t know if they are predators or prey. Will they survive, and who is this mysterious hunter that knows so much about them?
When we meet Wendy and Jacob they are the sleaziest of the sleaze, bilking poor unsuspecting people out of their money, and not even thinking about it. They drag her young brother Glen around the country with them, living in hotels and even using him in their con. I didn’t like them very much in the beginning and I have to admit those feelings had not changed much by the time I finished the book.
Jacob is the most self-centered, cowardly, no good piece of work you’ve ever met. He only wants Wendy for one thing, and really doesn’t care if she knows it. He has moments of being a slightly real human being, but they are few and far between. Wendy has a great body, a fact she is well aware of, and uses to her advantage any time she can. She does try to keep the peace when Jacob’s temper gets the best of him, which happens often. She knows what they are doing is wrong, and I think she might want to make it good, until it all goes wrong. She does grow a pair toward the end, and I did begin to like her a little bit, but I’m not sure I can forgive her for lugging her little brother around and exposing him to their way of life.
There is a truly bad vampire named Charles Cory who will make your skin crawl, and I felt like I had to take a bath each time we met him. This guy was evil to the tenth power. We have the mysterious Morgan Teague, a man with a secret. I’ll be honest, I figured out what his secret was about 2 pages after we met him, but it took Wendy and Jacob a little longer.
This book doesn’t give us the beautiful young vampires, these guys are nasty, decaying and evil. I did like that twist, it’s refreshing to see a different take on the myth every now and again.
I had a bit of problem while thinking about this review, I just didn’t know if I liked this book or not. On the one hand, I disliked Wendy and Jacob from beginning to end; it’s hard to say you like a book when you can’t find a character you like. On the other hand, I did feel extreme emotion while reading it, mostly dislike, but emotion is emotion.
The ending sets us up for a sequel and will I read that, yes I will. I have to see where the author is taking us, and if Wendy and Jacob become better people. All I can say is, you’ll have to read the book for yourself to decide, I’m on the fence.
Review by Penelope Adams
Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews