Kiss of Death (The Morganville Vampires, #8) in SOS: Serious Overload of Series

May 28, 2010 Chrissie rated it really liked it

Shelves: young-adult, urban-fantasy, vampires, books-i-own, books-read-2010

***It is impossible to write this review without giving away some spoilers for events in the previous books in this series. If you have not read the other books please read this review with caution***

There are three main story-lines within Kiss of Death. The first one is that Morley arrives on the scene looking for passes that will allow him and his friends to leave Morganville for good. Claire made a deal with him during the events of Fade Out that she would get these passes for him and she kn ***It is impossible to write this review without giving away some spoilers for events in the previous books in this series. If you have not read the other books please read this review with caution***

There are three main story-lines within Kiss of Death. The first one is that Morley arrives on the scene looking for passes that will allow him and his friends to leave Morganville for good. Claire made a deal with him during the events of Fade Out that she would get these passes for him and she knows that Morley will kill Shane and Eve if she fails. However, Amelie knows that Morley is too dangerous to allow out of Morganville so she refuses to listen to Claire’s pleas for help.

The second one is that, although Amelie refuses to let Morley leave Morganville, she does allow Claire, Shane, Eve and Michael to leave for a fews days whilst they travel to Dallas so that Michael can record a demo tape for a recording company. So ensues a road trip, but things do not go as well as they hoped. Amelie tells them that they must take a vampire escort, who just happens to be Oliver. But he insists that they stop in a small town along the way so that he can take care of some top-secret vampire business. Whilst they are waiting for him they run into some trouble with the locals and end up being told to leave town by the sheriff. To make things even worse, the gang then run into trouble with some vampires! They assumed that as there are supposed to be no vampires outside of Morganville that they would be safe from this particular threat, but this is not the case.

The third storyline involves Myrnin and Claire trying to fix the computer that runs Morganville after Ada died in the last book. Before Claire leaves for Dallas they realise that the computer must be fixed as the barriers at the border are not working and neither are the mind-altering elements that help people to forget about what goes on in Morganville when they leave. Myrnin is convinced that they can’t rebuild the machine without organic matter (by which he means a brain!) but Claire refuses to allow this to happen – mainly because she knows that it will probably be her brain used in the experiment!

I will admit that this is probably my least favourite book in the series so far. There was something missing from this story which meant that I wasn’t pulled into it like I have been with the previous books. It felt a little bit like this story was just written as an aside and it didn’t really have much to do with the important events going on within Morganville. In fact, I’m pretty sure that you could skip reading this book and still be able to continue with the next book in the series without any problems.

This being said though, there are definitely some redeeming features from within the pages of this book. For a start, because there is not as much action in the book as there has been in some of the others, the closeness shared by the four people living in the Glass House really shines through. They are always there for each other and there is some great witty banter (mainly between Shane and Eve) that really lightens the mood of the novel. Although this has been present in all the books in the series it has been slightly less noticeable before now due to the break-neck pace of the books. In fact there are some pretty funny moments in Kiss of Death. One of my favourites is the part where Eve has to buy a new car after hers is wrecked and she ends up falling in love with, and buying, a hearse. This leads to a lot of dark humour from the gang and some laugh out loud moments.

Also I really enjoyed the ending of this story. Instead of a cliff hanger that leads to a rush to the bookstore for the next book, this one is rounded up quite nicely and there is a definite happy feeling to this ending.

Overall, even though this isn’t the best novel of the series, it is still worth a read for all fans of Claire, Shane, Eve and Michael, due to the amazing characterisation and the trouble that the gang always manage to find themselves in! It does make me wonder what they will get up to in Ghost Town. ...more

Like · see review

Apr 25, 2010 Naomi rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

This is the 8th book in The Morganville Vampire Series & each and every one is bloody brilliant!! Claire,Shane Eve & Michael actually get to leave Morganville for a road trip in this book which doesn't quite go as smoothly as planned.....not gonna spoil it for anyone so let's just say it's well worth reading! ...more

Like · see review