Kitty and the Midnight Hour by Carrie Vaughn
Series: Kitty Norville
Publisher: Grand Central, 2005
Genre: Fantasy
Sub-genre: Paranormal
Rating: 4 pints of blood
I really like the cover. It's pretty typical for the genre, but I think they did a really good job with it. The blue tone is awesome with the red text, and I love that they threw a red ribbon in on the end of her braid (though it's not that visible from the image above...) And I love the glowing fog behind her, though I think it could have done without the city buildings in the background, they make it a little too busy.
Kitty Norville is a midnight shift DJ at an alternative rock radio station. One night while taking calls for requests she gets a strange call asking if she believes in vampires. Being a werewolf herself of course she does. Suddenly her late night alternative rock show turns into a late night advice hotline for the supernatural called The Midnight Hour. The impromptu show is a huge success and her boss wants to know if she can do it again. Suddenly the show is her baby and she'll do anything to keep it.
Unfortunately the leader of the local vampire Family thinks she's drawing too much attention to their species and doesn't like to think that his own are calling in for advice from Kitty rather than going to him. He contacts Carl, the Alpha of Kitty's and tells him to stop the show. Kitty has other plans.
Despite the vampires gunning for the show to end, at any cost, and her Alpha constantly threatening her if she doesn't quit, Kitty keeps up with her weekly show. It's the only thing she can really claim as hers and there's no way she's going to give it up, especially after it goes into syndication across the country. She even keeps the show live when a werewolf assassin shows up to take her out, on the air, admitting to her entire audience that she's a werewolf.
Between keeping the show going, causing problems between herself and her alpha, and trying not to get killed she's also looking into some guy who proclaims he can cure vampirism and lycanthropy, looking into government organizations that are studying supernatural species and trying to help the cops find out what's causing the string of violent murders that have been happening. Suddenly she realizes she may have taken on more than she can handle.
I really enjoyed this. I think part of what I like so much about werewolf novels is that it's always interesting to read about the two parts of the person, the human and the wolf. I think the way it was handled in this was really well done. Kitty was a very interesting protagonist, and it was fun to watch her grow emotionally and, well, egotistically as her show grew. It was a good balance to have her friend TJ there to remind her when she was getting too cocky for her own good.
There is a lot going on in this story. I think maybe a couple of the more minor things could have been cut out, but at least there was action through pretty much the entire thing. There were a couple things that left me a bit disgruntled, but not too bad and I won't mention them here because it'd give away spoilers. A few points in the plot are pretty obvious, but overall it was really well drawn out.
The characters were really well developed and there were people to balance out Kitty as she grew more cocky with the success of her show. I also liked that she did grow with the show, even if it was a little too much for her own good.
In all it was a really good story and I'd recommend it to people who like action filled plots.
Oh, and it scores points to joking about a werewolf named Kitty in it.
Publisher: Grand Central, 2005
Genre: Fantasy
Sub-genre: Paranormal
Rating: 4 pints of blood
I really like the cover. It's pretty typical for the genre, but I think they did a really good job with it. The blue tone is awesome with the red text, and I love that they threw a red ribbon in on the end of her braid (though it's not that visible from the image above...) And I love the glowing fog behind her, though I think it could have done without the city buildings in the background, they make it a little too busy.
Kitty Norville is a midnight shift DJ at an alternative rock radio station. One night while taking calls for requests she gets a strange call asking if she believes in vampires. Being a werewolf herself of course she does. Suddenly her late night alternative rock show turns into a late night advice hotline for the supernatural called The Midnight Hour. The impromptu show is a huge success and her boss wants to know if she can do it again. Suddenly the show is her baby and she'll do anything to keep it.
Unfortunately the leader of the local vampire Family thinks she's drawing too much attention to their species and doesn't like to think that his own are calling in for advice from Kitty rather than going to him. He contacts Carl, the Alpha of Kitty's and tells him to stop the show. Kitty has other plans.
Despite the vampires gunning for the show to end, at any cost, and her Alpha constantly threatening her if she doesn't quit, Kitty keeps up with her weekly show. It's the only thing she can really claim as hers and there's no way she's going to give it up, especially after it goes into syndication across the country. She even keeps the show live when a werewolf assassin shows up to take her out, on the air, admitting to her entire audience that she's a werewolf.
Between keeping the show going, causing problems between herself and her alpha, and trying not to get killed she's also looking into some guy who proclaims he can cure vampirism and lycanthropy, looking into government organizations that are studying supernatural species and trying to help the cops find out what's causing the string of violent murders that have been happening. Suddenly she realizes she may have taken on more than she can handle.
I really enjoyed this. I think part of what I like so much about werewolf novels is that it's always interesting to read about the two parts of the person, the human and the wolf. I think the way it was handled in this was really well done. Kitty was a very interesting protagonist, and it was fun to watch her grow emotionally and, well, egotistically as her show grew. It was a good balance to have her friend TJ there to remind her when she was getting too cocky for her own good.
There is a lot going on in this story. I think maybe a couple of the more minor things could have been cut out, but at least there was action through pretty much the entire thing. There were a couple things that left me a bit disgruntled, but not too bad and I won't mention them here because it'd give away spoilers. A few points in the plot are pretty obvious, but overall it was really well drawn out.
The characters were really well developed and there were people to balance out Kitty as she grew more cocky with the success of her show. I also liked that she did grow with the show, even if it was a little too much for her own good.
In all it was a really good story and I'd recommend it to people who like action filled plots.
Oh, and it scores points to joking about a werewolf named Kitty in it.