Title: Bite Club (Morganville Vampires Book Ten)
Publisher: Allison and Busby
Author: Rachel Caine
Release date: 2nd May 2011
Publisher: Allison and Busby
Morganville is a quiet college town where humans and
vampires 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 Clare 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 fighting 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...
Another day in Morganville, another problem that
threatens the town’s safety. In a town where vampires roam the streets, this is
no idle threat and once again, it’s down to Claire and her friends to sort out
the problem. But somehow, Shane, Claire’s boyfriend is involved this time and
so is Bishop, one of the most dangerous vampires – will anyone get out alive?
This book has been on my 'to read' list since 2011 when
it was released. I absolutely adore Rachel Caine's Morganville Vampire series
and couldn't wait to read this one. I started it over the bank holiday and with
the sunshine and summer feeling that was about I felt like rejoining old
friends with this read. Although the sunshine and warm weather didn't last (no
surprise there really) I did enjoy reading this book while snuggled up in front
of the fire with a blanket and a warm vimto.
Although it is a while since I read Ghost Town, book nine
in the series, I found it so easy to get back into the story and didn't really
feel like I had to re-familiarise myself with the characters, they were just
there waiting for me to read them into life again – that's how readable her
books are.
My only criticism of the novel would be the first person
narratives from Shane, Claire's boyfriend. While Shane has never been my
favourite character (I find him whiney and a bit pathetic although I know he
has ‘issues’ from his past) I have seen him as essential to the plot and
believed that the reason I had any feelings about his character at all was down
to good writing. I still believe Rachel Caine is a brilliant writer, who hooks
you in and allows you to read her novels comfortably rather than trying to
overpower you with complexity in plot or language but Shane’s character was
driving me bonkers. From Claire’s point of view (the novel is written in third
person but follows Claire’s character) Shane was behaving unreasonably and I
found him irritating and hearing from his point of view, I didn’t feel any more
sympathy.
The plot (as always) was full of interesting twists and
was dissimilar to the plot of the other novels in her series while following a
similar formula that you can easily slip into. I find her novels really easy to
read with recognisable and detailed characters and that’s why I wanted to read this
book in the nice weather. Morganville is
a really interesting place and each book in the series adds more to the
Morganville scene without becoming repetitive. Although the romantic vampire
trope has become popular and over-used, I find Rachel Caine’s series is
multi-dimensional with her own town and her own vampire rules. I would
recommend this title and the series to anyone who fancies an easy read with
(mostly) likeable characters.
3.5/5 Another novel in a brilliant series but one of the
characters was a little on the annoying side.
