Review: Midnight Alley by Rachel Caine

Midnight Alley (Morganville Vampires #3) by Rachel Caine
Format: paperback
Source: purchased
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Date read: 2013

Morganville Vampires
1. Glass Houses
2. The Dead Girls' Dance
3. Midnight Alley - Paperback | Kindle
4. Feast of Fools
5. Lord of Misrule
6. Carpe Corpus
7. Fade Out
8. Kiss of Death
9. Ghost Town
10. Bite Club
11. Last Breath [Serial Killers review]
12. Black Dawn
13. Bitter Blood
14. Fall of Night
15. Daylighters

Rachel Caine
| Website | Amazon |

Synopsis (Goodreads):

Morganville is such a nice place to live... And die. If you don’t mind that sort of thing.

When Claire Danvers learned that her college town was run by vampires, she did what any intelligent, self-preserving student would do: she applied for a transfer and stocked up on garlic. The transfer is no longer an option, but that garlic may come in handy.

Now Claire has pledged herself to Amelie, the most powerful vampire in town. The protection her contract secures does little to reassure her friends. All of a sudden, people are turning up dead, a stalker resurfaces from Claire’s past, and an ancient bloodsucker extends a chilling invitation for private lessons in his secluded home.

My Thoughts: This installment gives us the lovely, crazed, immensely intelligent Myrnin and I COULDN'T BE HAPPIER! Yeah, he's a little off his rocker and he threatens to eat Claire more than once (not in a sexy way, mind you) but I just love the guy. He's MYRNIN!

Aside from the fabulous Myrnin, this book messes with Claire and crew in a big way. The dynamic in the house is all screwed up and tense as Shane tries to deal (or not deal, as the case may be) with Michael's new self. While I like all the characters in these books, Shane is... well, he has the tortured hero thing going for him and I'm such a sucker for the tortured hero types. I mean, his dad is vicious and kinda crazy, he's had to deal with WAY more death than most people should ever need to and, at heart, he's a protector and he takes Eve and Claire's safety very seriously. I like that about him. I like his willingness to throw himself into the thick of things (something that will land him in trouble more than once in the course of these books) and I get why he had such a hard time wrapping his mind around Michael being a vampire. I also like that Claire can redirect all his internal anger with a few well placed kisses. *swoon*

The dark underbelly of Morganville is uncovered -- not just the vampires (which we know about) but the rebel human factions that are willing to sacrifice a teenage girl because they perceive her as helping the vampires they're trying to tear down. Bad humans are bad. Speaking of bad, Monica is ten types of creepy. There's so much that happens here. SO MUCH.

Have I mentioned that we get to play in Myrnin's world a bit? I just love that crazy vamp.