Book: Kiss Of Death by Rachel Caine

Published April 2010|Published by Penguin Group|194 Pages|Purchased For My Nook

Part Of A Series: Yes, Morganville Vampires #8

Genre: YA/Paranormal- Vampires

Find out more: Goodreads|Barnes And Noble|Amazon|Rachel Caine’s Website

Goodreads.com Summary: Claire Danvers has a few things on her mind. First of all there is the laundry, which is now an unfortunate shade of pink. Then there is her boyfriend, Shane, who is never too far from her thoughts. Finally there is her best friend Eve’s relationship problems. As if life as a student wasn’t complicated enough, Claire just happens to be studying in Morganville. A town run by vampires.

Trouble seems to follow Claire and her friends like a shadow and tonight is no exception to the rule. They must find the most difficult documents for a vampire to acquire; people passes that will allow “bad ass” Morley and his friends to leave Morganville. But it’s proving incredibly difficult, and with the odds seemingly stacked against them, the biggest question of all is…

Will they survive?

I liked Kiss Of Death, but I think it’s my least favorite book in the series.  Claire and her roommates get to leave Morganville for a few days, so Michael can record a demo, and even though they talk about never going back to Morganville, such a plan would never work, so in the end, they have to go back.

Since we are talking about Michael, Shane, Claire and Eve, they don’t have any ordinary trip, and they run into trouble along the way.  They make a couple stops, because Bishop passed through a couple towns before going to Morganville, turned almost an entire town into vampires, and also (somehow) gave them that god-awful vampire illness.

I do think it was good to see life outside Morganville, and that Bishop created more vampires…the idea that there are vampires not in Morganville, potentially leaving chaos in their wake is a bit weird.  But it really shows that life exists outside Morganville, and that it really does seem like a pretty safe place to live.  Plus, you really see how sheltered they are in Morganville, especially Eve and Michael, and you see how used they are to vampires just walking around that they’re not quite sure what to do when they’re not in Morgvanille.  It will be interesting to see how they adjust to Morganville after leaving for a few days.

One thing I love about this series is how consistent the characters are.  They’ve all changed in some way- though Claire seems to be the most different out of the entire group- yet they still manage to be themselves and don’t have drastic personality changes.  Like, in Glass Houses, I NEVER would have predicted that Claire would stake a vampire with A NUMBER TWO PENCIL!  And Caine totally builds on each book, so things we see in each book carry us through the next couple.

Final thoughts:

I liked Kiss Of Death, and while it’s definitely my least favorite book in the series, it’s nice to see the gang out of the confines of Morganville.  It just didn’t get my attention the way the other ones have.  I can’t wait to see how some things in Kiss Of Death play out in the next couple books.  It gets 3 stars.