Ethan and Merit have been on edge waiting for Balthasar,
Ethan’s creator, to show himself. Finally the ancient vampire makes an
appearance – and he’s as terrifying and powerful as they feared; he also feels
entitled to his progeny’s achievements, including his house
But it’s not the only threat looking. The problems
besetting Navarre house have finally been revealed as two of their vampires
become attempted assassins in a very public attack. While Navarre has never
been a friend to Cadogan, Ethan and Merit can’t stand aside while the vampire
house is acting so strangely and has to investigate, even with Balthasar stalking
them.
This is one of those hard reviews to write. It’s hard
because I find myself with a feeling of, well, vaguely positive indifference
towards the book. I didn’t dislike it, there were few things about it that I
had issue with (though there are some which I’ll get to). The writing was well
paced, the action seems nicely described. The two main plots were nicely
interwoven, related and each got sufficient time and attention to be properly
developed and come to a natural conclusion.
Merit continues to be a relatively fun character, active
and in control without being overwhelming and eclipsing everyone else. There
was also more presence from the other women around her, the other female
guards, Helen who runs the house, Margot the cook, Mallory her best friend.
They’re not present in huge amounts but this is a very Ethan and Merit focused
book. I also like that Mallory is finally coming from beneath the shadow of her
past misdeeds to be a less controversial and dubious presence in the book
always haunted by her own guilt
I also appreciated that Merit managed to be intelligent
and insightful in this book without the need for everyone else to suddenly lose
half of their brain cells. It has been an unfortunate habit of the series to
make Merit seem extremely intelligent by making everyone else… somewhat limited
in their comprehension.
I love Merit’s adoration of all things edible and
unhealthy and she almost makes me hungry reading
the book (or, in her case, hangry – her hungry anger has
no caused emergency lunches to be ready at all times) though there’s a dubious
element of this
unhealthy eating without any side issues.
We had some touching on the Sorcerers with Catcher and
Mallory’s upcoming wedding – and a lot of interest debate around it. I loved
how they chewed over the idea that even with someone you love, getting married
for “practical purposes” rather takes the wind out of things. But equally there’s
the counter debate that people grow up, what they once dreamed of isn’t what
they want and love and practicality can mean that a big romantic moment is less
important – it’s a nice back and forth with the added good input from Ethan
that her friends are adults who don’t need Merit to police their relationship.
I do think this book could have been improved by a little
more development – Mallory and Catcher want to rejoin the magical organisation…
ok, why? What does this organisation actually do? Why is membership an
advantage? We have a miscellaneous criminal group doing criminal things –
expand on that please. We have a new American Vampire organisation – ok, what
does that mean? What does it do? How? I was starving for some exposition to
make me more invested in this book and the world
Especially since Merit and Ethan leave this book pretty
much as they came in. I can understand not needing to grow a character every
book – but this book was so micro-focused on them that it felt like there should
have been something
Now to some actual issues
The first issue I have is that one of the big bads in
this book tries to sexually assault Merit. The book does do a good job of
showing this as a hard experience for Merit and not something she can just get
over, equally it shows Ethan being highly respectful of that and giving her the
space she needs. But it remains that we have a sexual assault that added
nothing to the book except traumatising Merit for the sake of… of… I actually
have no idea. It didn’t make the conflict more real or the big bad badder or,
well, anything. It was just there. If anything I felt it was there to try and
make the fight against Balthasar more Merit’s personal fight than Ethan’s which
seems pretty sad and unnecessary.
It had another minorly irritating side effect – because of
woo-woo, Merit ends up having issues with Ethan getting too close to her. They’re
both very understanding about it which is good, but this happens just about
every book. There’s always something – an argument, a secret, an issue, an old
flame – that puts Merit and Ethan on the outs with each other
My second issue is ongoing for the whole series; I do
find myself continually bemused by the lack of power of the vampires. I don’t
even mean lack of supernatural power, in fact it’s an interesting twist that
the vampires in the Chicagoland Vampires
series are stronger and faster than humans but not to a massive degree. The
idea that a vampire can fight a human and has a strong edge – but that an edge
is all they have – is an interesting one. But even that isn’t followed through,
with vampires repeatedly behaving that they’re tougher and stronger than they
are in one scene and then being oddly vulnerable in another (2 vampires with
swords attacking a party with gun-wielding bodyguards, for example, should have
been unthinkable).
No, what bemuses me is the lack of political power, specifically the lack of wealth. We have these vampire houses that have existed for centuries, united households of dozens of vampires who have, literally, centuries in which to amass wealth and influence but they don’t see to have a lot to show for it. Or they do – in that they have big expensive cars (which they destroy in a regular basis) and big expensive houses – but then people like Merit’s dad come along and they’re supposed to be vastly more rich and powerful than the vampire houses. Why are the vampires so bad with money? Why are the continually out resourced by people who have had centuries less in which to gather their wealth – and they didn’t have a legion of loyal followers as well? It doesn’t seem to fit
Which leads to me ongoing gripe about this series; Morgan
of Navarre house is supposed to be almost 100 years old. Ethan is supposed to
be 400 years old. Morgan acts like an angsty teenager of about 15, even with
the greater development of him in this book, he’s still an angsty teenager of
15. Ethan is short tempered, impetuous and has big emotional displays which are
meant to make him look powerful but don’t seem to achieve anything and ends up
looking like a tantrum before his elders. Like in this book Ethan decides to go
have a big confrontation with the big bad which… doesn’t achieve anything
except Ethan stomping around and then being escorted off the premises like a
naughty school boy. He’s 400 years old. Why isn’t he better than this?
And we have a problem with inclusion. The Chicagoland Vampires series is set, as
is pretty obvious, in Chicago a very racially diverse city. This would surprise
you reading the books. We have Malik, Ethan’s second who appears very very very
briefly and an Asian temp guard who appears even less briefly. I think there
are two completely nameless POC, one a secretary, one a supplicant for Ethan
who we breeze past. No major character is POC, only one minor character is POC.
This is more glaring because this is book 11 in a series that continues to have
very few POC. It also has no LGBT characters – and erasure that has also
continued through 11 books and an enormous number of characters
In the end, I liked this book. I had no trouble reading
it. But if you asked me to point out anything this book did excellently I find
myself flailing and generally just reaching for all the things it didn’t do
wrong. It was a good book, it was a fun, easy read, it didn’t break any of
Merit’s ongoing story and it’s clearly setting up the next big bad… but there
was just nothing truly stellar or amazing about it to keep me hooked. While
nothing made me want to put the book down, there was also nothing compelling me
to pick it up once I had put it down. It was good, it was not bad – but that
feels like a kind of damning way to praise a book.
