Faith Hunter - Skinwalker (2009)

This is the first book in the Jane Yellowrock series. The story was interesting and the characters were good, but the description was overly verbose and relentless. I felt like some parts went on forever without remorse. It got irritating.

Regardless all that would merely make it an okay book with too much description, if the description wasn't frightening and stomach-turning.

The author had a child tied up by a skinwalker who ate the child alive. The child asphyxiated on her own vomit as her liver was being eaten. I feel revolted just thinking about it.

Is this a good series? I won't be reading any more of them. I won't be able to ever forget that imagery and I resent the author for putting it in my head. The book didn't have any warnings that it was going to get perverted. It should have. I think all books should come with warnings just like films. Authors shouldn't be allowed to get away with the kind of deviance that a film would get slapped for.

That wasn't the only demented aspect of the narrative, just the one that swirls through my head the most. I do wonder about authors who are able to write things like this. What goes through their minds when they look at the people around them?? I don't think murdering a child so graphically was necessary for the narrative progression. It has turned me off this author completely.

Rachel Caine - Bk 7 Fade Out (2009); Bk 8 Kiss of Death (2010)

Every so often there comes along a book series that you yearn for during the yearly wait for the very next book. The Morganville Vampires series isn't it. It's just nice vampire fluff without all the angst and yearning of the ever-so-lame Vampire Diaries. There's a teensy bit of lame teenage love, but mostly the characters are just trying to survive in a vampire town, cut off from the rest of the world. But don't think they're trying to escape. People don't escape from Morganville. The town even has it's own B-grade University and all the people who live there, well they're blood donors - literally. Every human allies themselves to a vampire protector, who keeps them safe from other vamps and expects them to go to the blood bank once a week to make their payment. Welcome to Morganville, town like no other American town... except maybe Washington or Hollywood.

I do enjoy the books. They're nice easy-on-the-mind relaxation. They're in my library section of books to go to when life has kicked me to the curb again and I just don't feel like crawling back out yet. It's good to have some comfort in a mad world and vampire novels are as far from reality as you can get. I find them addictive and I feel betrayed when they suck - no pun intended.

Book 7, Fade Out, was good. It's hard to explain any of the plot without giving the fun away. Basically the teens of Morganville find themselves up to their armpits in angry murderous vamps when a historical documentary of the people of Morganville goes really really wrong. It was fun and not overly predictable. You knew the baddie was up to something, but you just didn't know what or who else was helping or whether this was the end of the vampire's Morganville secretly-coexist-with-humans project.

Book 8, Kiss of Death, happened, so obviously Morganville survived to bring forth new horrors on its humans. Why don't they just run away? They can't. They're all tagged, like a psychic microchip. Anyone who tries to run is hunted down and killed. But in this book the four main teen characters do get to leave for a week. When Michael finally lands a recording contract in Dallas, Eve, Shane and Claire tag along for the fun - under the watchdog gaze of vampire second-in-command Oliver - not the nicest companion for a roadtrip. Then the fun begins, because the world and Morganville are two very different places. Just because you can survive there, doesn't mean you know anything about surviving outside it.

So put on some fluffy vampire bunny slippers, grab a nice cup of tea and curl up somewhere warm to enjoy the fun of the Morganville Vampires series. If you like friendly non-gore non-horror vampire books, these shouldn't be missed.