The Morganville Vampires

Back in January, I picked up a collection of YA vampire stories called Immortal: Love Stories With Bite. I admit it, I'm a sucker for vampire stories, and while not all the stories were fantastic, there were a lot of really good ones that make the anthology worthwhile.

Rachel Caine's short story "Dead Man Stalking" was one of my favorites out of the entire book, and while I wouldn't have called it a "love story" in the romantic sense, I think it explored a different kind of love, and I am so glad it was included. It was an introduction to Caine's series, The Morganville Vampires, which, I am sad to say, I may never have picked up otherwise. Here's another admission: the back blurb of a book matters to me. The title or cover might get me to pick up a book, but it's the back blurb that gets me to either buy it on the spot or look inside. The back of the first book, Glass Houses, never really grabbed my attention.

The short story? Grabbed me, hooked me, and dragged me back to Borders for more.

Luckily for me, the first two books were published in a 2-for-1 volume back in November, so I picked that up... and have flown through Book 1 in three days. Considering my normal method of reading is a chapter or two every morning, that's breakneck speed for me. I love the characters, I love the writing, I love the quirks and twists and turns and the way it keeps me on the edge of my seat. Caine isn't afraid to put her characters in danger and keep them there, and despite the main character being a 16-year-old brainiac in college, Claire hasn't struck me as a Mary Sue. Sure, she's super book-smart, but other than that, she's pretty much an ordinary girl who flounders in ordinary ways and finds herself in extraordinary circumstances.

I've just finished the first book, Glass Houses, and just started Book 2, The Dead Girls' Dance, about three hours ago... and am already six chapters in. It's not that I read that slow: it's that I have other things to do... or keep trying to do. And yet, I just keep picking the book back up, read another scene or two, try to put it down, and can't. I don't want to wait to know what happens next.

And that, I think, has to be the highest praise any book can ever hope to achieve.

I think there'll be another trip to Borders this week, and I will be grabbing as many of The Morganville Vampires series as they have.