Fall of Night: The Morganville Vampires [Hardcover]

Dear Rachel Caine:

I am one of the biggest fans of the Morganville Series. You have made me fall so in love with Claire, Shane, Michael, Eve, and Myrnin. How do I thank you for writing this wonderful series? Yes, I own all your books on Kindle. I also have the paper books placed so proudly on my book shelf and let's not forget that I own all 12 audio books that Cynthia Holloway narrated (don't like the new girl on the last two, sorry)!

Anyhoo, I know the series has to come to an end and this is the only series I have ever read that stayed interesting and fresh for 14 books. You have done something I have never seen and I think that is amazing!!

I have one tiny request as the biggest fan of Morganville! Please, on the last book include an epilogue. I know your aren't going to pull a Charlaine Harris and destroy the series we have loved so long. I'm not worried about that. I am worried that if I don't see Shane and Claire in the future - I might curl up into a fetal position and cry :)

I want to see Shane and Claire ten years later married, pregnant, and already have a daughter named Alyssa. I want them to live in the Glass House still with Michael and Eve. I want Eve to be turned vampire. I want Michael and Eve to love the children like they were theirs. I want Shane to be mayor of Morganville. And I want Myrnin to be "Uncle Myrnin" and come over every Sunday to dinner.

If you did something like that for an epilogue for the last book - I think 95% of your Morganville fans would be dancing on the rooftops!!!

Why am I writing this review as a letter to you? Because I think this might be the only way you might actually see it and I really hope you do.

Thank you again Rachel for a wonderful series!

Now on to the review:

Oh crap! What an ending. This is going to be bad...

I loved the book! As usual Rachel Caine did a fantastic job.

Claire goes to MIT - to get away from Morganville. Little does she know, Shane follows her to keep a watchful eye on her but continues to give Claire her space. This is how the book starts off.

To be honest I didn't like the first half of this book because Shane and Claire were apart. It only feels right when they were together, for me. But I know that Claire had to be free to make sure that Shane would be what she wanted and needed. Luckily it doesn't take her too long.

Of course Morganville follows with a whole lot of trouble because that is the way this series goes. It was exciting and action packed.

I loved Shane having his own POV in the book. You got an inside look at how much he loves Claire and it makes me squee like a fangirl!

Loved the book and can't wait for the final book in November!

Claire honestly never thought she would be able to leave Morganville, but through a twist of fate, she finally is as she's headed off to MIT. Still it wasn't an easy choice to leave the home she has built with her friends, some of whom surprsiginly enough happen to be vampires. However, all this time she's been living under a shadow, and knows that she needs to have the chance to experience life outside of Morganville to determine what she really wants from life. Only things aren't quite as she expects, as the safety she counted on outside of the vampire's immediate grasp was just a smokescreen. Suddenly things are spinning out of control as she seems to be under attack from multiple sides. Who would have thought vampires would ever become the least of her worries?

I was so incredibly proud of Claire in this book. As the reader, I've seen her strength grow by leaps and bounds from the shy and scared girl we first met, yet her friends have a hard times seeing her as an equal rather than someone who needs to be protected, and Shane is the worst of them all. Don't get me wrong, I love the too of them together, but I think Claire leaving was incredibly important for her to not only learn about herself and what she really wants, but to force Shane (and the others) to see her for who she has become. Shane really messed up in the last book, and while I realize that it wasn't the first time, this time around she knew that she couldn't just let his actions go. He had to learn to see her differently and that she wasn't a pushover any more, or the two of them would never work in the long run. That being said, leaving wasn't easy, and Rachel Caine truly nailed the emotional aspect as my heart really went out to both of them. Still Claire had to figure out what she really wanted in life, and FALL OF NIGHT gave her the opportunity, even if things didn't turn out quite as she had expected.

Prior to this point in the series, things were almost entirely set in Morganville, or at least under a vampire authority's close watch while Claire company were out of the borders. To see the new dynamic with Claire outside of Morganville was both interesting and terrifying at the same time. At least in Morganville, the threat is known, whereas outside of it, the threats' identities are hidden and seem to be coming from all sides. It simply amazed me (and Claire) that she could possibly be in more danger than she ever was before, and yet somehow she was. I really loved how the world view was opened up so much more, especially as it showed Claire that both her action and those of the vampires reached so much further than just Morganville's limits. I think it really upped the ante and ratcheted up the intensity up to eleven.

Sometimes I truly believe authors enjoy torturing readers, and with the way FALL OF NIGHT ended, I have to think Rachel Caine is no exception to that rule. I just cannot even begin to imagine what those events will mean in the next installment. I've said this several times throughout this series whenever she would throw us for a loop, but honestly this time around it's looks to be the game changers of all game changers. Even if the rest of FALL OF NIGHT had not been fantastic, I still would be as desperate to get my hands on the next installment. But lucky for me, FALL OF NIGHT was fantastic, which honestly is incredibly impressive considering just how long run this series is. From what I can see, the next book is potentially the last, but if FALL OF NIGHT is any indication, there's plenty of room for more as there's no sign of this series going stale yet. An absolute treat for fans of the series, FALL OF NIGHT is not to be missed!

Following from the events of `Bitter Blood', when lives were lost and friendships put to the test, Claire Danvers is following-through with her decision to leave Morganville, and attend the MIT graduate program in Cambridge.

Claire has made the monumental decision to leave her friends behind - including newlyweds Michael and Eve, who want to start acting more like a married couple (less roommates should help with that). But Claire is also determined to leave her beloved boyfriend, Shane, behind too. Because Shane made the worst mistake not too long ago, believing a lie that Michael told about his relationship with Claire - and now she needs to be away from the most important person in her life, to try and find who she is without him.

In Cambridge, Claire has moved into an apartment with her pre-Morganville best friend, Liz. But straight away Claire is off-balanced by the fact that her blue room apartment is nothing as homely as the Glass House. Then there's the fact that Liz has turned into a flake, dressing in schoolgirl outfits and decidedly disinterested in books. She also has a stalker - a man named Derrick who keeps an unwanted vigil of their house.

Claire will be assisting a Professor Irene Anderson during her MIT graduate program - another ex-Morganville resident, and another assistant who survived tutelage under Myrnin. They will be working on Claire's VLAD machine - a mood-altering device that should help humans with unruly vamps.

Meanwhile, in Morganville, Shane can't stop missing Claire (and worrying about her). He also feels like the awkward third-wheel in Michael and Eve's marriage. So he makes the momentous decision to drive to Cambridge and keep an eye on Claire ... from a distance.

`Fall of Night' is the fourteenth book in Rachel Caine's young adult paranormal series, `Morganville Vampires.'

It always happens that when I crack open the latest `Morganville' instalment, a small part of me worries that this might be the book to mark my waning interest. There aren't many series that have been around since 2006 with consistent releases, and still manage to not only maintain, but consistently grow its fan-base ... so I always go into `Morganville', with a small pessimistic part of me that's waiting for the magic to dissipate. But I'm happy to report that `Fall of Night' is not that book - and, actually, it looks like Rachel Caine has just given this series a second-wind...

In `Fall of Night', Caine is again taking the characters out of Morganville. She did this in book eight, `Kiss of Death' - taking the awesome foursome on a killer (literally) road-trip that opened their eyes to the fact that the grass is not necessarily greener on the vampireless side. The big difference, of course, is that in this 14th book, Claire is all on her lonesome - and by choice. Not only is she outside of Morganville, but she has left her friends behind too.

Now, Claire has always been a strong, remarkable young woman. She prefers brains over brawn (but also knows how to throw a punch) and she's a very level-headed, quick-witted warrior. But, ever since Michael, Eve and Shane gave her the safety of the Glass House in book one, she has been part of a unit. Now that we're 14 books in, I can see it makes a lot of sense for Caine to take Claire out of that home-base and show fans what she has become while living in Morganville. With Claire's independence, fans can really appreciate that she loses none of her strength away from the awesome-foursome friendship unit. She might lose a little of her heart, but even away from Morganville Claire has a steel backbone and strong moral compass.

The heart though, is another matter ... but again it makes sense that we see Claire and Shane put to the test. They've been an item for a long, long time and have become very co-dependent - so it was actually really nice for Caine to separate them and see how they go. Of course, it's mostly Claire doing the separating since Shane can't stay away for long (it's more protective than stalkerish though - honest!) but it was nice to reaffirm why they are together, what remains when they are apart and the strength that binds them. For anyone doubting Claire and Shane being together for so long, and at such a young age - I think Caine puts a lot of those worries to bed in this book.

And this is also a book of new faces. Claire and Shane both befriend two Cambridge locals who work with Professor Anderson, and at the bar where Shane gets a job as busboy. Pete is a bouncer and rough teddy-bear, then there's Jesse - a fiery red head with killer curves and a badass streak a mile long. When Derrick, Liz's stalker, starts encroaching on Claire's new territory, Pete and Jesse are there in lieu of Michael, Eve and Shane to have her back.

I loved these two, especially Jesse. She poses an interesting twist in the story, and while some fans will probably grumble about her appearance I can't wait to see how she shakes things up for a certain someone....

Caine is also touching on themes of the eighth book, `Kiss of Night' - in that the Morganville kids learn that the outside world is just as tough and full of danger. Shane, especially, is somewhat surprised by the violence he encounters from regular humans.

The difference with `Fall of Night', however, is that some of the outside violence may be leaking into Morganville ... but fans will just have to wait for `Daylighters' releasing in November to find out more about that.

All in all `Fall of Night' was another Morganville book that got my heart racing, my hands sweaty and my interest piqued. What can I say? Rachel Caine has done it again.