Waiting On Wednesday (39)

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly meme, hosted by Jill at Breaking The Spine, in which we highlight an upcoming book release we're eagerly awaiting.

This week I'm waiting on Last Breath by Rachel Caine, the eleventh book in the Morganville Vampires series. The series seems to be getting better with each installment, and the blurb leads me to believe that this trend will continue.

There is a question Claire has long been asking: why do vampires live so far out in a sunny desert when they're sensitive to sunlight? The reason doesn't have to do with sunlight but water - and an ancient enemy who has finally found a way to invade the vampires' landlocked community. Vampires aren't the top predator on earth. There's something worse that preys on them ...something much worse. Which means if Claire, and Morganville, want to live, they will have to fight on to the last breath.

[Synopsis by Goodreads]

Last Breath will be released by Razorbill on the 21st of November.

Feel free to leave a link to your own Waiting On Wednesday post in the comments, and I'll be sure to have a look.

Review: Bite Club by Rachel Caine

Bite Club by Rachel Caine

Series: Morganville Vampires (#10)
Pages: 442
Publisher: Razorbill
Published: May 3rd, 2011
IBSN: 9780749010164

Morganville, Texas, is a quiet college town where humans and vampires live in relative peace. But lately a great deal of blood is being spilled - not in a feeding frenzy, but for someone's twisted idea of entertainment.

After discovering that vampires populate Morganville - and surviving a number of adventures with her new night-dwelling friends - college student Claire Danvers has come to realise that for the most part, the undead just want to live their lives.

But someone else wants them to get ready to rumble.

There's a new extreme sport being broadcast over the Internet: bare-knuckle fights pitting captured vampires against one another - or, worse, against humans. Tracking the signal leads Claire - accompanied by a loyal group of friends and frenemies - to discover that what started as an online brawl will soon threaten everyone in Morganville. And if they want to survive, they'll have to do a lot more than fight...

[Synopsis by Goodreads]

The Morganville Vampires series has been one of my favourites ever since I read the first book, Glass Houses, two years ago.

The main reasons I love this series are (1) it's so fast-paced and exciting, (2) it's so refreshing to have the vampires be the bad guys again, and (3) since Claire's gotten used to Morganville, she's become brave and strong in the face of the the town's inherent dangers.

Bite Club keeps up all of that, and gives us more. The plot of Bite Club is twistier, with what seems like multiple subplots at the beginning weaving together into one big complication. Plus, the complication hits a lot closer to home this time for Claire, giving the book more emotional pull.

Also in Bite Club, the narration sometimes switches over to Shane's perspective. Consequently, we readers can put the pieces together faster than the characters can at times (and don't you just love knowing something the main character doesn't?).

What else is great about this series and this instalment to it is how you feel invested in the characters.When the characters make stupid choices, you get angry at them. So while a certain character in particular really pissed me off for most of the book (people who've read Bite Club: one guess who that was), I liked that the author could make me feel so strongly for them.

If I had a problem with Bite Club, though, it'd be how this time Claire relied on other people to help solve her problems. That's not to say that she relied on them wholly, but after Ghost Town (where Claire was essentially on her own) I thought a trend would catch on.

I give Bite Club a 4 out of 5.

Rachel Caine Signing!

Yesterday afternoon/evening, I went to Rachel Caine's signing at Dymocks. Rachel Caine is the author of over 30 novels, including the Morganville Vampires series, in case you didn't know (but you probably did). I missed the trivia contest, but arrived in time for Rachel's talk about her writing career so far and for her Q & A session. She was extremely funny and her stories were definitely interesting.

Next she was signing. I only brought three to be signed (because my puny arms couldn't possibly lug all 10 books to the store): the first in the series, Glass Houses; the latest in the series, Bite Club; and my favourite in the series, Ghost Town.

Plus, she gave out awesome swag to people who came, including a Morganville Resident Identification Card and a holographic bookmark.

Yesterday was the first time I'd ever been to a book signing, and I can tell it certainly won't be the last! It was really great to meet the author behind the books.