Friday Night Bites

"Although I loved to dance, hip thrusting under Barbie's bubbly instruction and ever-bouncing bosom involved too little actual dance and too much cleavage. I needed to respect my dance master. Respect wasn't exactly the emotion Barbie inspired."

"Thank you...because if I hadn't been changed, I couldn't eat this incredibly unhealthy food."

“But before you alienate everyone who cares about you, Mallory or Morgan or whoever, remember who you were before this happened, before you were changed. Try to find some balance. Try to find a place in your life for the things that mattered before he changed you.”

Merit is still struggling with her vampire, who feels apart from her, which is not the way it should be. But she’s too afraid to mention it to anyone, too afraid of the consequences. So she’s constantly battling against her vampir

“But before you alienate everyone who cares about you, Mallory or Morgan or whoever, remember who you were before this happened, before you were changed. Try to find some balance. Try to find a place in your life for the things that mattered before he changed you.”

Merit is still struggling with her vampire, who feels apart from her, which is not the way it should be. But she’s too afraid to mention it to anyone, too afraid of the consequences. So she’s constantly battling against her vampire side, trying to keep her in control.

Then there’s the Raves – the mass feeding parties that are frowned upon by most civilized vampires but that some vampires still do, and that one reported is threatening to make public to humans. So Merit is ordered by her master, Ethan Sullivan, to reconnect with her high-class family, to act as the liaison between vampires and humans. But someone doesn’t want the humans and vampires to get along, and they have plans and people in place to carry out their methods.

I was very frustrated with Merit in this book. Where in the first book she was feisty and sassy, that side of her seemed lesser. She alienated so many people, Mallory and Morgan, who cared about her, who wanted more for her than Ethan Sullivan, who doesn’t deserve all the unconditional loyalty she’s suddenly giving him. I was disappointed that she didn’t even try to give Morgan a chance. A guy who wanted her from the first moment they met, unlike Ethan who said he wanted her, but after she refused him, slept with Amber. Ugh. Merit is an idiot.

“We’re going to change. This is going to change us both. There’s no guarantee that we come out the end of it still liking each other.”

Merit and Mallory’s friendship is suffering because of all the changes both of them are undergoing – Merit with her new vampire life and Mallory with her new sorcerer life. But most of the problems are because of Merit, and her inability to get over Ethan, to realise that she deserves better, and she didn’t handle it well when Mallory tried to tell her so. I really hope that in the next book Merit will start acting more like herself.

“And lest you forget,” he added, “my interest in your personal life is wholly Cadogan-motivated.”
Oh, right in the numbers with that one.
“My concern is about alliances,” he said, “about the potential of putting Navarre alliance insignia over our door. Don’t mistake it for anything else.”

Ethan is still an ass who thinks he’s superior and entitled, and I still dislike him intensely.

This was an enjoyable book, despite my problems with Merit and with Ethan. I’m glad that we got to meet more shapeshifters, and Merit’s dad, who is a real jerk.