Kitty’s House of Horrors by Carrie Vaughn
All is going well for Kitty Norville, radio host of The Midnight Hour and the first “celebrity werewolf.” Happily married and Alpha to the Denver werewolves, she is in a comfortable place in her life — at least as comfortable as she can be, given her paranormal lifestyle. Then, her popularity takes her in an all-new direction when she is asked to participate in a new reality television series dedicated to ferreting out the secrets of its supernatural stars, and the publicity is just too good to miss.
Set in a hunting lodge in the wilds of Montana, the show seems like a bad joke, or the worst of “reality” television, but when the stars start turning up murdered, Kitty realizes that the show is far from harmless, and that in order to survive, she and the other participants will have to overcome their suspicions in order to protect one another from the deadly “games” that await them.
This is a real transitional book for Kitty. Her personal growth in previous books gradually set her in place as a leader in a variety of circumstances, and now that her readers have accepted that, the focus of the book — and, one might suspect from some of its foreshadowing, of the series as a whole — seems to be pushing her into events on a grander scale, rather than focusing on that development.
The paranormal world is starting to push in on Kitty, and her little Colorado pack seems to be on the verge of making its mark on the forces beyond it — in one way or another. This is reflected throughout the book by the fact that Carrie Vaughn acts as a bit of an angel of death to some of her characters, and she is good at not limiting her scythe to “throwaway” or new characters. In spite of this, though, I do love a well-done, dark book, and this one certainly does not disappoint in that department.
With Kitty’s own personal development — and I think that this book clinches her standing as a powerful Alpha, regardless of the events of any previous novels — it also sets her in place as one of the dominant characters in urban fantasy today. She is a breath of fresh air in a genre that is overflowing with “tough” female heroines — Kitty stands out from the pack for a lot of reasons. Somehow, even though she has the snarky sense of humor and the tough-as-nails backbone well in place, she still keeps her heart, and for Kitty, that is not synonymous with jumping into bed with everything she sees. For as fun as the endless soap operas of most gritty paranormal heroines seem to be, it is also an incredibly refreshing change to have one in a committed relationship, at least at this point in her story…
Carrie Vaughn delivers another exciting novel, and this misadventure of Kitty’s is gripping and visceral. Though not quite a cliffhanger, Kitty’s House of Horrors sets up the series for many more stories in the future, and audiences will definitely want to be along for the ride.
Book Stats:
- Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
- Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; 1 edition (January 1, 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0446199559
- ISBN-13: 978-0446199551
Purchase a print copy of Kitty’s House of Horrors from Amazon
Purchase a Kindle copy of Kitty’s House of Horrors from Amazon
Purchase a print copy of Kitty’s House of Horrors from Barnes and Noble
Purchase a Nook copy of Kitty’s House of Horrors from Barnes and Noble
Books in the Kitty Norville series in the order they should be read:
Kitty and the Midnight Hour
Kitty Goes to Washington
Kitty Takes a Holiday
Kitty and the Silver Bullet
Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand
Kitty Raises Hell
Kitty’s House of Horrors
Kitty Goes to War
Kitty’s Big Trouble
If you have not read any Kitty Books you really need to start at the beginning to see why Kitty is who she is. The stories are wonderful and totally worth your time! I was just looking at the list and seeing I am two books behind.. lol
I see I’m also behind in the series. I love these books!