Bite Club Review

Title: Bite Club (Morganville Vampires Book Ten)

Author: Rachel Caine

Release date: 2^nd 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.