Monday 25 April 2011

Bite Club: The Morganville Vampires - Rachel Caine

Bite Club: The Morganville Vampires – Rachel Caine

Pages: 442
Publisher: Allison and Busby
Release Date: 3rd May 2011

Other Titles in this Series: Glass Houses, The Dead Girls’ Dance, Midnight Alley, Feast of Fools, Lord of Misrule, Carpe Corpus, Fade Out, Kiss of Death, Ghost Town

Morganville is a quiet college town where vampires and humans live in relative peace. But lately a great deal of blood is being spilt...

Having survived a number of adventures with her new night-dwelling friends, college student Claire Danvers has come to realise that for the most part, the undead just want to get on with their lives.

But someone else wants them to get ready to rumble.

There’s a new extreme sport being broadcast over the Internet: bare-knuckle fights pitting captured vampires against one another – or, worse, against humans. Claire soon discovers that what started as an online brawl will soon threaten everyone in Morganville. And if they want to survive, they’ll have to do a lot more than fight...

After ten books centred on Claire, Shane, Eve and Michael, I should, in theory, be bored of The Morganville Vampires books. But I continue to devour and love each and every book in this awesome series.

To mix it up a bit in Bite Club, we get something that I’m sure made many fans of the series sequel quite a lot: Shane’s POV. I really do love him. Rachel Caine gives us a rare first-person glimpse into the very messed up and confused mind of Shane Collins with random interspersions of his POV in the middle of chapters. I think this may be because we actually don't see that much of Shane otherwise, though I’ll leave why up to you to read and find out yourself. But this boy gave me palpitations throughout Bite Club: I wanted to hug him as well as give him a well-deserved slap. He’s such a fantastic character.

As well as the expected fast-paced and action-packed plot that I’ve come to expect from a Morganville Vampires novel, Bite Club also packed a serious emotional punch. The stress of living in Morganville and the dangerous nature of Claire, Michael, Shane and Eve’s lives began to show in the relationships between Shane and Michael and Shane and Claire. What also didn't help was all of the pressure and secrets that were resting on Claire’s shoulders which showed in Bite Club with Claire doing, saying and feeling some things that were distinctly un-Claire.

It’s probably very obvious with the tone of this review how deeply I care about these characters. I love and care for them as if they were real people. Which some people may see as slightly worrying... But, regardless of that, I really do care about them which made Bite Club a book that was frequently painful to read. Such a wide range of emotions were thrown at me: anger, sadness, worry, anxiety and utter relief when it ended. There are fairly few series where I’ve become so involved with the characters. I even feel affection for Amelie and Oliver. And of course there’s Myrnin who you can't help but love, if only for his vampire bunny slippers.

Bite Club had me on the edge of my seat in panic for a large portion of it and left me wanting more. Bring on Last Breath!

Sophie

4 comments:

  1. Ohhhh I must have it!Almost a week away!
    Thanks for the review :)

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  2. Oh a glimpse into Shane's mind! That sounds interesting, and definitely makes me want to read this one right away!

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  3. Its cool to hear Claire's and Shane's point of view. Loved the book finished it in a week.

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