Kiss Of Death (The Morganville Vampires #8) By: Rachel Caine (Book Review)

 ***This review will contain spoilers***

Summary:

Vampire musician Michael Glass has attracted the attention of a big- time producer who wants to cut a demo and play some gigs-which means Michael will have to enter the human world. For this, he's been assigned escorts that include both a dangerous immortal as well as Michael's all-too-human friends. And with that mix of personalities, this is going to be a road trip from hell...

When I first started reading this book, I had a sinking feeling and was asking myself if a ghost writer wrote it? The first couple chapters were written completely different to how Caine has written all her previous books in the series. Even the short stories had the same writing style to them. It's hard to pin point exactly what was different but the whole feel of those chapters felt like it was someone who read the previous books and were writing the characters how they thought they would be written. Think of fanfiction writing. It's not quite the same but it's very much someone else other than the author writing. 

However, after reading a few chapters I finally got to the part that felt familiar and like Caine's writing. I don't know if maybe those chapters were edited differently but they sucked ass compared to Caine's normal writing. I am so happy that we finally got a book where our Scooby-gang leaves Morganville...even for a short time. This is one of the many reasons why I love Caine and her creativity. The team effectively ending Bishop's reign of terror on Morganville and we'[re left to think, what's next? Typically, when the antagonist is defeated we either need a new antagonist or some authors will continue writing the series but the new bad guy is someone that is easily defeated and doesn't last more than a single book. 

This time around our gang is leaving town with Oliver as their chaperone so that Michael can go to Dallas and record some music. The group eventually ends up in Dallas but it takes a lot of fighting and tenacity to get there. What I love about this book is that we are finally outside of Morganville but the chaos still ensues. We have Morley and his gang of misfits that make their way out of town and of course they cross paths with our little gang. Despite, being on opposite sides they band together to fight the vampires of Blacke. Bishop and his cronies stopped by before they made their way to Morganville. However, before they left they turned a couple people into vampires and from there it took about a month before most of the town went to complete shit and only a handful were left keeping the pieces together. The danger of these vampires were that they were ravaged with the vampire disease so irrational thoughts were out the window. It seemed that Blacke was Morley's test to see if he could earn his freedom by helping Oliver and the gang neutralize the crazy vamps. 

I was not a fan of Eve in this book. I didn't like how confrontational and rude she was to Claire. Eve was a stage 5 clinger girlfriend, plagued with fear and instead of communicating with her boyfriend she acts out and in the worst way possible. The group makes a pit stop in a small town and they sit down in a place that screams biker gang (STAY AWAY) the whole setting screamed to approach with caution but Eve decided to make herself the center of attention and agitate the bikers. You would think Eve growing up in Morganville, she would have some sense of self preservation but it clearly wasn't even in the same state with her. Our wonderful Claire handled the situation perfectly. Sometimes being polite gets you out of sticky situations. And I wish that Eve would have been appreciative of what Claire did instead of calling her a goody two shoes. If it were me, I would be quick in telling her to shut the fuck and she can go back in and join them if she didn't like how I handled things. Claire proved herself yet again and this time she mastered archery! My favourite part of the book was her shooting an arrow at Morley right in the heart when he said she didn't have the guts to do it.

Rating:

5 stars on 5! I really enjoyed reading this book and finally seeing the outside world! One thing that still wasn't 100% clear was who attacked Oliver when the gang were resting in a motel. Was it Morley and his posse? I'm assuming so but then why wouldn't Oliver warn them of him? Otherwise, I love how everything played out. And I'm excited to see what else we'll be introduced to.