Destined for an Early Grave (Night Huntress, #4) in SOS: Serious Overload of Series

Feb 03, 2009 The Flooze rated it liked it

Shelves: vanquished_2009, urban-fantasy-paranormal, owned, glutton_for_punishment

The freakish villain, the raw emotions, the tense ending, and the inclusion of my favorite character, Vlad, made this one an interesting enough read. But I had many problems with it along the way.

You know that couple who love each other overwhelmingly, but are just so volatile together, you think they'd be better apart? Because you're sure one day they'll love each other to death?

Cat and Bones become that couple.

I was sure they'd murder each other before the threat was resolved. The lesson of ...more

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Aug 21, 2011 Thenia rated it liked it

Shelves: 2013, r-ab, reviewed, paranormal, series, vampires

It's been a long time since I last read a Night Huntress book and I'd forgotten about the dynamic in Cat and Bones' relationship.

In this book they fight a hell of a lot (view spoiler) and have a great many difficulties in dealing with this new threat in their lives. Gregor, an old vampire with the nickname Dreamsnatcher (meaning he can invade people's dreams and kidnap them from there) claims that he has married Cat long before she married Bones and ...more

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Mar 28, 2018 Carrie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: vampire, paranormal-romance, night-huntress-series

OH.My.God!!!!! This book was soooo good!

I have missed the world of Cat and Bones...what the heck? I had so many what the heck moments reading.

Dream snatching? Not his wife?? What the what?

I love Fabian the ghost. I love that he can travel where ever, if he's holding on. ...more

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Apr 28, 2010 Lauren⁷ 💜 rated it really liked it

Shelves: romance, fantasy-sci-fi-romance-romantasy, hot-hunky-hero

At the very least I can say, this book doesn't suffer from lack of a plot. But it's not quite up to JF's usual fantastic par. Humongous spoilers in the spoiler section! (view spoiler) At the very least I can say, this book doesn't suffer from lack of a plot. But it's not quite up to JF's usual fantastic par. Humongous spoilers in the spoiler section! (view spoiler)[
So the plot of this book is apparently Cat was kidnapped and then blood-bound to a vamp named Gregor under coercion when she was 16. He's a nasty piece of work, controlling and emotionally abusive. She gets rescued by Mencheres who then buries the memories of her time with Gregor so deep, not even Mencheres (a very powerful Master Vamp) can unbury them. And then Gregor gets imprisoned by Mencheres for breaking some undead law. Well under undead law, a blood-binding is absolute, you can't divorce whoever you're blood-bound to. It's literally til' death do you part. So needless to say, Gregor is none too happy about her being rescued and "forgetting" her time with him. So he's back and he's staking his claim over Cat. It pretty much goes without saying that undead politics and laws are very complex. And so Gregor more or less begins an all out war, although more of the psychological type than the guns and death type. Because Gregor is a Dreamsnatcher, meaning he can go into and control people's dreams and even hurt them in their dreams and if they're dumb enough to touch him in the dream, he can even transport them to wherever he is and he torments Cat in her dreams in some sick attempt to get her to come to him. But when that doesn't work, he sends an army of Ghouls to where Cat and Bones are staying, and que a huge battle. Bones locks Cat into a closet for her own safety, Gregor contacts her in the closet via cell and convinces her to fall asleep so he can Dreamsnatch her and thus stop the battle, because she thinks Bones and his comrades are outnumbered and going to get killed. So she does it. And then finds out that Gregor was lying to her and that they where not in fact outnumbered. Naturally Cat is mad at him, but his blood can unlock her memories, so she bites him and finds out that he isn't lying to her. As previously stated, they where indeed blood-bound. But even after finding all that out, she still only wants and only loves Bones. She returns to Bones and to say he's furious over her leaving is a serious under statement. They have a huge fight, the mother of all fights. Which ends with Bones leaving Cat and breaking her heart. Reading that was really heart-wrenching for me, because I love Cat and Bones so much. And they stay separated for a while, and poor Cat, it's really hard on her. They do eventually make-up and get back together, but to me, it just seemed to happen a little easily and a little too quickly. I would have liked to see them talk things out more and maybe not have made-up quite so quickly and easily. Cat has decided she wants to become a full vampire and she goes to Bones to have him do it. He agrees and Cat does indeed get turned. But it turns out that Cat isn't really undead, most likely due to her mixed lineage. Her heart still beats sometimes and she doesn't drink or crave human blood. Instead she drinks and craves vampire blood. She attacks poor Bones and more or less drains him several times. The deeper reasons behind why she drinks vamp blood is kinda complicated and I'm not going to get into it here. And because she drank blood from a vampire who pyrokinetic abilities, Cat gets them herself. When i first read that, I almost groaned. Thinking please Jeaniene do not take this down the road of the later Anita Blake novels and give Cat more and more powers until it gets ridiculous. To my great relief, it turned out that by drinking a vampire's blood, you can get some of their powers but the effect may or may not be permanent. *Update* I read the first chapter of This Side Of The Grave, and it seems Cat's pyrokinetic abilities are indeed permanent. And thankfully after that, no other powers manifest. And then Cat gets yet another bomb dropped on her. Her mother Justina gets turned into a vampire by Gregor. And Cat is understandably horrified by that, as for her mother. Oy. If you've read the other books, then you know how Justina feels about the undead community. Which is to say, she'd rather be a cockroach than a member of the undead community. So after she gets turned, to say she's she unhappy is an understatement. She begs Cat to kill her, and tries to commit suicide. Obviously Cat doesn't, and Justina's attempts are unsuccessful. Bones of all people is able to get through to her. And that's because, Justina's boyfriend Rodney the ghoul gets killed saving her. And he tells her that she will not dishonor Rodney by killing herself when Rodney sacrificed himself for her. And that was pretty sad, because I liked Rodney quite a bit. And also Cat more or less adopts a ghost (FYI, ghosts and ghouls are totally different creatures) named Fabian. Which I have to say is really cute and Fabian has a very endearing personality, I not only like him quite a bit, but he also ended up playing a pretty important role in this book. Due to an age old prejudice from vampires regarding ghosts, they get ignored and therefore can eavesdrop more or less undetected. And we do get to see more of Fabian in book 5. (hide spoiler)] Don't get me wrong, this is by no means a bad book. The writing is good, the characters are solid and the plot is good. It's just that Jeaniene Frost crammed waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much into this book. She just keeps dropping bombshells left and right, and after a while, it's less "I can't believe that just happened", and more "Another bombshell." As a matter of fact, I had to take notes on all the bombshells dropped, for when I wrote this review, and I've never had to do that before. Getting back to the bombshells, there is not anything wrong with them, but they would have worked better maybe spaced out in the remaining 5 books, instead of crammed into this book. That being said, I still recommend this book. The humor as per the usual is fantastic, I laughed a fair amount while reading this. But because of reasons stated in the spoilers section, the romance between Cat and Bones suffers a little bit. And we get to know more about characters introduced in previous books, which I liked. So am I going to give up on this series? Absolutely not, I love this series and unless these go down the Anita Blake novels road I will not give up on this series. And I doubt they will, because Jeaniene is a better writer. To wrap up this very long review, problems aside this is a well worth reading entry in the Night Huntress series. ...more

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Dec 08, 2010 Kati rated it really liked it

Shelves: urban-fantasy, in-english, 2012

Fast paced with many unexpected twists and turns. My favorite aspect of this story must've been the friendship between Cat and Vlad. I hope the author doesn't screw it up with UST in the future, their relationship is special because it's not sexual. I love it. And I loved Fabian, a great addition!

So why "only" 4 stars? Because of two things. First, the whole "Everybody wants Cat" spiel that gets rehearsed in every book. Second, because the spat between Cat and Bones turned out to be just that, a ...more

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Nov 21, 2011 Hasien rated it it was ok

Shelves: vampire

This novel was a little convoluted compared to the prior 3 books. The story just didn't make sense. ...more

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Feb 24, 2010 Denise rated it liked it

Shelves: books, vampires, fantasy, urban-fantasy, 2012

I haven't read this series in a few years but I'm trying to go back and finish off old series. I didn't really care for the main plot. We all knew Cat wasn't going to end up with Gregor. The only thing that would keep me reading this series is wanting to see more of Cat and Bones. ...more

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Jul 22, 2009 Drea rated it really liked it

Shelves: september-2009

Another good book in the series. Very enjoyable. Though I will say Bones and Cat really butted heads a lot through out the book, more than I thought they would as I thought they had gotten past alot of things in book three.

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