Lord Of Misrule (The Morganville Vampires #5) By: Rachel Caine (Book Review)

 ***This review will contain spoilers***

Summary:

In the college town of Morganville, vampires and humans coexist in (relatively) bloodless harmony. Then comes Bishop, the master vampire who threatens to abolish all order, revive the forces of the evil dead, and let chaos rule. But Bishop isn't the only threat. Violent black cyclone clouds hover, promising a storm of devastating proportions as student Claire Danvers and her friends prepare to defend Morganville against elements both natural and unnatural.

I have said it in the past and I shall say it again. I am beyond impressed how much Caine is able to include in just a couple hundred pages. I have read books with 700+ pages and have just a fraction of action or plot in comparison to the Morganville books. 

Lord of Misrule is slightly different in comparison to the previous books where they were structured this one is more chaotic and erratic. Which absolutely makes sense. There's an outright war in Morganville, humans are huddling together plotting to overturn the town and create a new regime all while a small group is trying to keep what little peace there is. Allegiances are constantly changing and what little hope there is for Amelie's group to succeed just keeps dwindling. 

Claire has a huge responsibility on her shoulders where the vampires are involved. All the vampires in Morganville are sick and descending into complete madness where they are reverting to their most basic animalistic self. And with Bishop in town causing havoc, the stress of the fighting are causing many vampires to deteriorate quickly. Claire with the help of Myrnin was able to figure out that Bishop's blood is the cure to this unknown illness but how can she get this distributed to all the vampires in time when every single place she turns to is either on fire or full of enemies? 

Despite the absolute chaos raging across Morganville, Claire and her friends stay as close together as possible. Checking in as often even when they’re separated from each other. And the one time we truly get a lovey moment is when Shane tells Claire he loves her. Honestly, great timing because it would suck dying before your boyfriend confesses his love for you.

There’s obviously so much more regarding the vampires than we’ve been introduced to so far in the series. Amelie is able to call all vampires who are blood-toed to her and unfortunately her call came at the most inopportune time…during the daytime. A lot of vampires burned to a crisp, however, Michael was luckily stopped by Richard Morrell. Myrnin also did experimentation on human/vampire like creatures to see if doing a mix of vampire and human DNA would help with the disease and instead he has them hiding out in an abandoned warehouse. Reading that section out late at night did not bode well for my nerves lmao. As if Myrnin alone wasn’t creepy enough as it is when he sunsets. 

The ending was definitely not what I was expecting and was beyond nerve wracking. Claire and the gang ended up trying to save its residents from City Hall since Amelie warned Claire it would be attacked, however, a big tornado sweeps Morganville up and City Hall is barely standing. Fast forward to the gang being handed over to Bishop and with the little black book from book 1 he uses a page from it and has it infused in Claire to be able to control her!!! Apparently, her connection with Amelie through her bound contract allowed such a thing to happen. 

Rating: 

Obviously, this is getting 5 stars on 5! I have a love/hate relationship with cliffhangers but the way Caine has written it works for me and if anything makes me want to jump to the following book quicker.