Kitty's Big Trouble by Carrie Vaughn

Synopsis from Goodreads.com
Kitty Norville is back and in more trouble than ever. Her recent run-in with werewolves traumatized by the horrors of war has made her start wondering how long the US government might have been covertly using werewolves in combat. Have any famous names in our own history might have actually been supernatural? She's got suspicions about William Tecumseh Sherman. Then an interview with the right vampire puts her on the trail of Wyatt Earp, vampire hunter.

But her investigations lead her to a clue about enigmatic vampire Roman and the mysterious Long Game played by vampires through the millennia. That, plus a call for help from a powerful vampire ally in San Francisco, suddenly puts Kitty and her friends on the supernatural chessboard, pieces in dangerously active play. And Kitty Norville is never content to be a pawn. . . .



My review:
Carrie Vaughn is back up to par with this book. This one was much better than the last one, Kitty Goes To War. In this book, Kitty is asked by Anastasia to join her in the fight against Roman in San Francisco. She needs to get hold of a very powerful object and wants Kitty to help her find it.


So Kitty, Ben and Cormac find their way to SF to be attacked by some of Roman's werewolves, taken through a maze of secret underground tunnels in Chinatown, getting lost in said tunnels, finding Chinese gods who help fight Roman, find Roman, fight Roman, lose to Roman who steals the powerful object, fight Roman again, get powerful object back, defeat another Chinese god and eventually give the powerful object back to the Chinese goddess who will look after it, along with Anastasia.


Loads of fast-paced action in this book, which almost never seems to stop. It moves really quickly from one scene to the next, but flows very well. Anastasia annoyed me, but I think she's supposed to. She's a very old vampire who came from a noble family and has that air of pompousness about her at times, yet at the same time can be quite caring towards others. She holds a bit of bitterness inside her and we do find out why she's so determined to beat Roman.


I really like how Cormac's character is turning out now, with the addition of the spirit of Amelia inside him. He doesn't need to rely on his guns so much now, not that he can with the terms of his parole, so he starts to use magic more and more with Amelia's help and guidance. This gives him an almost supernatural outlook and I feel he fits in better with Kitty and Ben, although there are times where I wish he would just pull out a large gun loaded with silver bullets and kill the nasty werewolves!


Ben and Kitty's relationship is stronger than ever and really helps them both in times of crisis. I hope this doesn't change in the future. I'm really looking forward to reading the next book in this series as well as Kitty's Greatest Hits, which tells us what actually happens to Cormac in jail. I just hope they hurry up and bring this one out on the Kindle soon!

Kitty Goes To War by Carrie Vaughn

Synopsis from Goodreads.com

Kitty Norville, Alpha werewolf and host of The Midnight Hour, a radio call-in show, is contacted by a friend at the NIH's Center for the Study of Paranatural Biology. Three Army soldiers recently returned from the war in Afghanistan are being held at Ft. Carson in Colorado Springs.  They're killer werewolves--and post traumatic stress has left them unable to control their shape-shifting and unable to interact with people.  Kitty agrees to see them, hoping to help by bringing them into her pack.   

Meanwhile, Kitty gets sued for libel by CEO Harold Franklin after featuring Speedy Mart--his nationwide chain of 24-hour convenience stores with a reputation for attracting supernatural unpleasantness--on her show.

Very bad weather is on the horizon. 

My review:

Oh no it seems Carrie Vaughn has lost a bit of excitement in this book compared with the last 3/4 books in this series. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it, but the thrill just wasn't there.

2 subplots run alongside each other in this story. The first one involves a group a Green Beret soldiers, turned into werewolves courtesy of their captain, who then gets blown up, leaving the pack without a clear leader. They return from Afghanistan and get further and further out of control. Kitty is called in by Dr Schumacher to assist the army in capturing these men. She helps get the remaining 3 after the newly self-appointed alpha of the little pack kills some of the others for insubordination. Kitty then talks to them in prison and can see the potential in helping 2 of them. The alpha is far too aggressive and far too wolf to be helped. On the night of the full moon, she takes these 2 new wolves with her pack for a hunt and run, but one of them disappears to go and free the alpha from prison. Kitty, Ben and Tyler, the other soldier wolf, head up to the compound in the middle of a blizzard to try and intercept this other wolf before he can release the alpha and cause any more murders and mayhem. Unfortunately he has already been released and a few others have been killed in the process. Tyler comes to Kitty's aid and kills the alpha for her!

The weather is the second subplot. There is a wizard in town, who just so happens to own the Speedymart chain of stores. He is doing something to the stores and casting very nasty weather spells while he gets the hell out of there. It has been said that he was the one to cause Hurricane Katrina. With Kitty and Ben on the hunt for the missing werewolf, it is up to Cormac to work out what to do, which he does with the help of a witch who has somehow managed to merge with him and now resides in his body. Kitty enlists the help of her pack to stop the wizard's spell and soon enough everything is back to normal.

Tyler moves to Seattle to be near his family and Kitty meets the local werewolf pack there. Rick makes a brief appearance, but nothing really happens with him. And that's about it.

The book seemed to have a weaker storyline than the others. Although I felt that the idea of helping soldiers turned werewolves become more productive members of society was an interesting one (they have mentioned about using supernaturals in the army in previous books), I just thought this story really lacked the thrill of the chase as it were. The main 2 fight scenes involving Kitty, other members of her pack and the army wolves were quite tame and not really long enough.

And I do feel the title is a bit misleading too as I thought this book was going to be about Kitty and Rick going to war against Roman, which was brought up in the last book. Maybe that will come a bit later. This book didn't really have anything to do with Roman and the war between the vampire, although it was suspected that Roman was the one encouraging the Speedymart wizard to do what he was doing.

Kitty's House of Horrors by Carrie Vaughn

Synopsis from Goodreads.com

Talk radio host and werewolf Kitty Norville has agreed to appear on TV's first all-supernatural reality show. She's expecting cheesy competitions and manufactured drama starring shapeshifters, vampires, and psychics. But what begins as a publicity stunt will turn into a fight for her life.

The cast members, including Kitty, arrive at the remote mountain lodge where the show is set. As soon as filming starts, violence erupts and Kitty suspects that the show is a cover for a nefarious plot. Then the cameras stop rolling, cast members start dying, and Kitty realizes she and her monster housemates are ironically the ultimate prize in a very different game. Stranded with no power, no phones, and no way to know who can be trusted, she must find a way to defeat the evil closing in . . . before it kills them all.

My review:

Wowzers! Where on earth does Carrie Vaughn keeping getting these fantastic ideas from for this series? This book was amazing and this series is fast becoming one of my very favourites!

In this book (#7 in the Kitty Norville series), Kitty is asked to appear in a TV reality programme with a difference- all of the participants are celebrity supernaturals. There's Kitty, Tina from Paranormal PI, Jeremy, a psychic whom Kitty met a few books back, Odysseus Grant, the magician, Lee, a were-seal, Jerome, a werewolf American wrestler, a couple of vampires and their human, Ariel, another radio show host with a similar programme to Kitty's and a sceptic called Conrad. The idea is that over the course of a couple of weeks in a very remote hunters' cabin near the woods, they will all convince Conrad that supernaturals do exist. Everything is being recorded on camera with some situations set up deliberately.

Kitty develops a bad feeling after Tina uses her ouija board and soon that bad feeling comes true. The programme turns into more of a horror movie, with various people being killed and injured and the supernaturals fighting for their lives. And all this time cameras are still rolling...

Kitty, of course, survives all, although with many following nightmares and the bad guys are eliminated to put it bluntly! I totally loved the constant feeling of terror once they all realised what was going on. Despite everything, Kitty manages to stay strong and everyone expects her to lead the group and know what to do. She doesn't, so starts thinking about Cormac and what he would do in this situation. Knowing what a werewolf hunter would do helps the whole situation a little bit.

This series just keeps getting better and better. I love Kitty's character - she's strong, determined, a survivor, completely cares about others in her "pack" and will do anything to ensure their safety and her own.

Kitty Raises Hell by Carrie Vaughn

Synopsis from Goodreads.com
Kitty Norville and Ben thought that they had left their problems in Vegas. What they should have realized is that vampire priestesses and lycanthropes don't forgive and forget: They unleashed flaming balls of revenge. To protect her pack of werewolves, Kitty seeks the help of TV paranormal investigators, but ultimately her survival and those of the creatures she's sworn to protect rests in the outstretched hands of her and her allies.

My review:
I do believe I am wrong. I don't normally admit to being wrong because I am always right, but for once I will admit I was wrong! I said that Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand (#5 in the Kitty Norville series) was the best book so far, but this one was even better.

This once carries straight on after Kitty and Ben return from the trip to Vegas. The trouble from Vegas has followed them home and someone finds Kitty's bar, New Moon, and burns the word Tiamat on the door. Kitty obviously knows what and who that means and now has to stop them. However she ends up dealing with something she didn't even know existed; a form of a djinn called an ifrit, which is a spirit made of fire and who loves causing chaos by burning everything and everyone down! Kitty does admit that she doesn't really know what to do and with the help of an old friend and some new ones she soon works out how to rid herself and Denver of this pest!

Even though Kitty is the female alpha of her pack, she readily admits when she doesn't know what to do and has no problems whatsoever asking for help. Some alphas or vampire masters would see that as a weakness, but I believe it takes great guts to ask for help when everyone else expects you to be able to deal with the problem.

I love Kitty and Ben's relationship. They are both clear alphas but are so madly in love with each other. I hope that doesn't change in the rest of the series. Although I do prefer the action and adventure in these books, I do also like it when a couple get together and it works out.

And I do like how Rick is developing as well. He is coming into his own being the new vampire master for Denver and even though Kitty may not always agree with his decisions, he does seem to be able to wait out and find the answers before jumping in with both feet. Something that Kitty is more than ready to do at times in this book. I love how secretive he is as well, always giving little snippets of his past to Kitty but never really revealing anything. I hope one day she does get a juicy story from him!

Right onto Book #7, Kitty's House of Horrors then!

Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand by Carrie Vaughn

Synopsis from Goodreads.com
HONEYMOON IN VEGAS?

Already the alpha pair of Denver's werewolf pack, Kitty and Ben now plan to tie the knot human-style by eloping to Vegas. Kitty is looking forward to sipping fru-fru drinks by the pool and doing her popular radio show on live TV, but her hotel is stocked with werewolf-hating bounty hunters. Elsewhere on the Strip an old-school magician might be wielding the real thing; the vampire community is harboring a dark secret; and the irresistible star of a suspicious animal act is determined to seduce Kitty.

My review:

I loved this book - it was the best one so far in the series I think.

Kitty and Ben head out to Las Vegas for this book to get married. At the same time Kitty is asked by her producer, Ozzie, to do a live TV version of her Midnight Hour radio show. Everything is getting organised, but when they arrive at the hotel, they find that a gun show is also being held in the same hotel. A gun show which involved lots of people with guns and bullets. People with silver bullets too, who are associates of Ben and Cormac. Quite inevitably Kitty doesn't feel very safe around these kind of people.

Kitty meets the local vampire master, Dom. She also checks out the local talent, a magician whose magic seems to be real and a troupe of were-shifters performing a rather seductive act. Kitty is intrigued by both acts and tries to convince them to come on her show.

Her show goes rather well. The wedding is all ready. Ben has won a poker game in a Texas Hold 'Em competition and Kitty manages to get some time next to the pool drinking a froufrou drink - just like she wanted. What could possibly go wrong?! Oh how could I ask such a daft question?! Of course something has to go wrong. The book would be pretty boring if it didn't!

So anyways...Ben gets kidnapped after complaining that there's some cheating going on in the next round of the poker game. Cue Kitty on the hunt trying to find him. the wedding has to be cancelled obviously as there's no groom and Kitty finds herself in a very dangerous situation, only to be saved by the very last people she expected.

I loved how Kitty would do anything for Ben, even though she knew she was walking straight into a trap, although it wasn't quite the trap she was expecting. Ben managed to get himself out of where he was being held, the bad guys were arrested or killed and finally Ben and Kitty get married in a white, convertible Cadillac by Elvis! Sounds like my kind of wedding - no stress of organising there!

But there's not a completely happy ending - someone tracks Kitty down back to Denver and gives her a little reminder of who she pissed off in Las Vegas.

Kitty and the Silver Bullet by Carrie Vaughn

Synopsis from Goodreads.com
Kitty's radio show, Kitty's Midnight Hour, is as popular as ever, and now she has a boyfriend who actually seems to understand her. Can she finally settle down to a normal life? Not if this is just the calm before the storm. When her mother falls ill, Kitty rushes back to Denver -- and right back to the abusive pack of werewolves she escaped a year ago. To make matters worse, a war is brewing in the vampire community as Denver's two oldest vampires vie for the city, threatening the whole supernatural community. Though she wants to stay neutral, Kitty is once again drawn into a world of politics and violence. To protect her family, her lover, and herself, she'll have to choose sides . . . and maybe become what she hates most about her kind: a killer.


My review:
Wow I'm ploughing through this series, but it's a good, easy one to read.

Kitty finds herself back in Denver in this book, trying to avoid Carl and Meg, the alpha and his mate from her previous pack. She knows that if she runs into them, they will kill her and she doesn't want Ben to get involved or hurt either. However, her mom is seriously ill and therefore she has no other choice.

After inviting a celebrity vampire to her radio show, she meets up with her in her hotel suite the following day only to find Rick there (he had previously asked for her help in challenging Carl and Arturo, the vampire master of Denver, and she refused). Minutes later guess who comes in through the door? You got it! Carl, Meg and Arturo. Power games all round!

The rest of the book involves Kitty helping Rick to defeat Arturo and at the same time, coping with her mom's illness. Surprisingly some of the old pack come to help Kitty and she kills Meg with silver bullets and the rest of the pack eat up Carl! Detective Hardin is also on hand to help where she can, but she seems to think that arresting everybody is the way to go. It worked with the wolves, but less so with the vampires.

Kitty is now home and is the alpha female of her pack who have all admitted their submission to her. Rick is the master vampire of Denver and everyone else who is a potential threat have all been defeated in one way or another. Everything should now be a-okay right? I doubt it or the series would have ended with this book!

Can't wait to read the next one now!

Kitty Takes a Holiday by Carrie Vaughn

Look at me - 2 books and 2 reviews in 2 days! Go me!!! LOL

Synopsis from Goodreads.com
Kitty Norville's established herself as a DJ, with her midnight talk show Kitty's Midnight Hour, been forced into revealing herself to the nation as a werewolf and testified to the Senate about the supernatural denizens of the USA, but now it's time to lay low in a remote Colorado cabin and work on her memoirs. Her plans get derailed when sexy werewolf hunter Cormac Bennett shows up with her lawyer, Ben O'Farrell, who's been bitten and is about to turn into a werewolf himself. But Kitty's hideaway is neither as peaceful nor as secret as she hopes, for barbed-wire crosses start showing up all over the place, and, worse, gruesome animal sacrifices are left at her door. Someone wants them gone, and it's up to Kitty and Cormac to find out who's stalking them - before someone gets really hurt . . 


My review:
Another good read in this series - I'm loving this one at the minute. I love Kitty's character - she's strong yet caring. And she always manages to get herself in (and out) of trouble wherever she goes!

In this one, Kitty is taking a well deserved break from her radio show and life in general and rents out a house in the middle of nowhere. She is supposed to be writing her memoirs but cannot find the inspiration to get going on it. Soon enough trouble finds its way into Kitty's life and someone keeps leaving dead bunnies and bloody crosses on her doorstep, which are soon followed by barbed wire crosses stuck into the ground around her cabin. She has no idea who is doing this or why.

One night, just as her nerves are finally breaking down even more, Cormac appears in her driveway with a bitten and torn up Ben in his Jeep. They had been out hunting and Ben got attacked by a werewolf. Kitty helps him cope with his new self and teaches him what she can.

Kitty is also accused of slaughtering a whole herd of cows, which she physically couldn't have done by herself. No one has any idea of what is going on at all.

Together all 3 try to work out the mystery of the bunnies, skinned dogs (which get hung up on the trees in the driveway) and crosses and Cormac contacts an old acquaintance. Tony solves the mystery and sets about clearing the curse, when a skinwalker in the guise of a wolf attacks the group and Cormac kills her before it kills Kitty. Unfortunately for Cormac the local sheriff was on the scene as he was part of the group trying to curse Kitty and arrests Cormac for murder.

Ben and Kitty drive all over the country trying to get evidence to support Cormac's case but no-one will help except for the skinwalker's sister. Unfortunately the courts are not up to believing in skinwalkers yet, so Cormac is found guilty, with a 4 year sentence!

When I read the title of this book I knew Kitty wouldn't get much of a holiday, but I certainly didn't expect some of the events - like Ben being bitten by a werewolf. Kitty develops a relationship with him, but is it for real or is it just the werewolf instinct in them both that brings them together? Will she finish her book? Will she go back to her radio show or has she decided that she's had enough of being in the limelight? I'll have to read the next one to find out!

Kitty Goes To Washington by Carrie Vaughn

Oh my word it's been almost 4 months since I last made a post on here. I was doing so well keeping it up at first, but soon other things find themselves getting in the way. Anyhow...here's a little quick review of the book I finished at 2am this morning!

Synopsis from Goodreads.com

Celebrity werewolf and late-night radio host Kitty Norville prefers to be heard and not seen. So when she's invited to testify at a Senate hearing on behalf of supernaturals, and her face gets plastered on national TV, she inherits a new set of friends, and enemies, including the vampire mistress of the city; an über-hot Brazilian were-jaguar; and a Bible-thumping senator who wants to expose kitty as a monster. Kitty quickly learns that in this city of dirty politicians and backstabbing pundits, everyone's itching for a fight. 

My review:
This book follows straight on from where the first one finished. Kitty is still hosting her Midnight Hour radio talk show, which tends to focus on the supernatural and has quickly developed a cult status.


In this book Kitty travels to Washington and is soon accosted by the local vampire leader who informs her that the local werewolves and other were-creatures do not have an alpha so are much more dangerous towards her. On a night out, Kitty meets a were-jaguar and soon develops a quick love affair with him.

Kitty gets called as a testimonial witness to a hearing about the report that Dr Fleming started on the biology of werewolves and vampires. During one of these hearing sessions Elijah Smith, the weird cult leader comes to give his statement, claiming he has developed a cure for both vampires and werewolves. Kitty, along with a psychic and a news reported go to investigate his caravan of troops and soon find out that he is not all that he seems. Some breadcrumbs, salt and herbs later and Elijah Smith is taken care of!

Dr Fleming, a senator from the hearing and the news reported from earlier get involved in a plot with the vampire leader's second hand man and Kitty finds herself in a very awkward situation on the night of the full moon. Everything does eventually turn out ok, even if it's not necessarily the way that Kitty would have wanted it. She helps, Annette, the vampire queen and manages to leave Washington more or less unscathed!

Another fast paced book and well worth the read! Can't wait to start the next one now!