Friday Night Bites by Chloe Neill
In Friday Night Bites (2009), the second in Chloe Neill’s Chicagoland Vampires series, Cadogan House is in trouble again. The villain of Some Girls Bite has gotten off with a slap on the wrist, and now there’s a journalist threatening to expose some of vampire-kind’s less savory secrets to the public. When the journalist turns out to be an old friend of Merit’s from her high-society upbringing, she is thrust back into the world she spent her human lifetime trying to escape. Then it turns out there’s a traitor in the House…
I love the way Neill approaches the mystery here. Merit may have unusual physical and psychic strengths and several men infatuated with her, but it’s her brain that’s most important in solving this puzzle. Merit’s research skills and love of old books yield some crucial clues, and her ability to put disparate facts together results in a breakthrough in the case.
Friday Night Bites also features a good amount of development in Merit’s personal life. She begins to realize that her ambiguous relationship with Ethan, her position as House Sentinel, and the unusual circumstances of her Change have been setting her apart from her fellow Cadogan vampires; and at the same time, her new life is driving a wedge between her and her best friend Mallory.
Ethan is much more palatable here. The events of Some Girls Bite have left him feeling more vulnerable — and more appreciative of the benefits Merit brings to Cadogan House and to his life. If you thought he was obnoxious in the previous book, you’ll like him better this time around.
Friday Night Bites is another fun installment in an entertaining series, and in my opinion better than the first. I already have Twice Bitten on the way.
Ten months after vampires revealed their existence to the mortals of Chicago, they’re enjoying a celebrity status usually reserved for the Hollywood elite. But should people learn about the Raves–mass feeding parties where vampires round up humans like cattle–the citizens will start sharpening their stakes.
So now it’s up to the new vampire Merit to reconnect with her upper class family and act as liaison between humans and bloodsuckers, and keep the more unsavory aspects of the vampire lifestyle out of the media. But someone doesn’t want peace between them–someone with an ancient grudge…
The geography is confusing me--how does one get to a village in Tibet by ship? And even the northernmost part…
Oh, this sounds interesting!
Locus reports that John Marsden died early today. Marsden authored the 7 book series that started off with the novel…
Mmmmm!
I *do* have pear trees... hmmm.