Thursday, January 31, 2013

BOOK REVIEW: Bitter Blood by Rachel Caine


Bitter Blood is the 13th book in the Morganville Vampires series written by Rachel Caine. The book was released in the UK by Allison & Busby on the 6th of November 2012. Rachel Caine is a NY Times Best Selling Author and is also known for the Weather Warden series. I purchased this book.

PLOT

With the eradication of the draug, the vampires of Morganville have been freed of their usual constraints. With the vampires indulging their every whim, the town's human population is determined to hold on to their lives by taking up arms. But Claire Danvers isn't about to take sides, considering she has ties to both the humans and the vampires. Throwing an unwanted complication into the mix a group of ghost hunters invade Morganville and find a lot more than they were looking for.

WHY I BOUGHT THIS

Morganville Vampires is in my top five favourite book series so there was never any doubt that I would be taking the time to check out the newest instalment of that series. I was even lucky enough last year to get my copy of Black Dawn signed and met Rachel Caine. Morganville Vampires is one of the few series that maintains itself at a set level and each instalment doesn’t let you down. Also Claire is one of the most impressive female protagonists I have ever read a strong but believable lead.

WHAT I THOUGHT

Decisions, decisions, decisions that seems to be an overwhelming theme at the conclusion of this book. But before I go into that let me get the usuals out of the way this is not the book to begin with if you are coming to Morganville Vampires for the first time, start with Glass Houses there is so much plot, lore and character development that takes place over the more than dozen books that came before this. If you came to the series at this point you would be mostly at sea but still thoroughly entertained by the end of it.

To be honest I am glad to see the back of the Draug storyline because it was just so dour and depressing I like to see how the characters interact with just the normal spectre of the Vampires being in control. Of course this is a more pressing situation and we get to see a lot more from the human side which is a definite plus. In previous books they were sometimes the nameless mass but this time we meet several of the humans of Morganville and learn a fair bit about them.

The fabulous four are all here and accounted for some of their choices might seem controversial or at least debatable but I can accept the choices they made at this point but I reserve the right to talk about it in later instalments which I am very eager to get to.

Claire is great as usual but I agree with many in the book who accuse her of caring too much for everyone else, thinking about her compared to say Sookie Stackhouse and you can see the difference between them as Sookie is very much about her own survival.

Shane is still angry despite taking steps in the right direction he is similar to Claire in that he has a poorly defined sense of self survival, his rage is like a legacy left by his father and at times he seems to hate it or love it depending on the circumstances which in Morganville is usually pretty extreme all along the line.

Michael and Eve are an interesting situation I understand that  they love each other though to me it always seems a little fast on Michael’s side of the relationship but is true love enough of a reason to put your friends in such direct danger of assassination I don’t know if I can get behind them but I can understand where they are coming from.

Myrna oh wow we learn a lot more about him and get a glimpse into his past. He has a lot more layers than I initially thought when we first met the mad inventor. I hope there is space to learn more about him before the end of the series.

Bitter Blood shows us that even 13 books in Morganville Vampires is still cooking like a newborn vampire in the Texas sun.

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