Karissa E. (ophelia99) reviewed on 7/28/2011 + 2527 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 3

This is the ninth book in the Kitty Norville series. It was an okay addition to the series but was nothing special. There were some things I liked about it but mostly Kitty and friends just seemed to plod through the story.

Kitty, Ben, and Cormac get a call from Anastasia asking for help hunting down Roman. Roman is after a special magic artifact that he will stop at nothing to acquire it. Kitty and friends will be plunged deep into the depth of San Francisco's Chinatown Underworld in their search of the magic artifact.

Kitty and friends seem a bit tired in this book, it seems like the book was written just to write something. By the end of the book it looks like Kitty and pack are going in a completely new direction, so maybe this is more of a transition book than anything.

The aspect of this book that I did really enjoy was the inclusion of a lot of Chinese mythology. There isn't a lot out there on Chinese mythology and the inclusion of it in this story was interesting. I also enjoyed watching Cormac evolve as a wizard, this made the story interesting too.

I had a lot of trouble with the plot though. Would Kitty really take off and search for famous dead werewolves just because she was curious about it? In previous books she has been pretty tied to her home territory so it seemed strange to have her running off on these frivolous missions in the beginning of the book. Then when she goes to help Anastasia it again seemed a bit contrived and out of character for her to become so deeply involved.

This book is missing a lot of our favorite characters; Kitty, Cormac, and Ben are there but no one else really makes an appearance. For the most part the book didn't hold my interest all that well. My favorite book in this series so far has been Kitty's House of Horrors. Books following that book have been less and less interesting to me as the series progresses. Given the way this book ends though maybe the next book will be more engaging.

Overall okay, but not nearly as engaging as the last couple books. Kitty acts out of character, a lot of our favorite characters are missing, and in general the characters that do show seem a bit tired. I had a lot of problems with the plot and why Kitty was motivated to do some of the things she did; it just seemed a bit contrived to me. I will probably read the next book in the series, but if it is similar to this one I won't be reading any more.

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