Glass Houses [Paperback]

All Claire Danvers wanted was a normal college experience. Preferably somewhere far away, but when her parents send her to Morganville, Texas, she's still glad to be going to college, even if she is, at sixteen, the youngest college student around. Morganville is a small college town, and Claire's prepared to make the best of her fresh start. Unfortunately, things don't turn out the way anyone expected or wanted them to.

At first, Claire's existence is made miserable by a few girls in her dorm who torment her. Dorm life, for Claire, is not all it's cracked up to be--in fact, it's pretty much as miserable as she thinks it can get, so Claire decides to move out and find a place off-campus. Luck is with her; she ends up at a spooky-looking mansion with a room she can actually afford, and three roommates who actually turn out to be pretty cool, even if they have reservations about letting her move in at first. Michael, Shane, and Eve are all eighteen, and Claire's a couple of years younger.

If Claire thought being harassed in her dorm was bad, she didn't know Morganville's secrets. When she moves out of the dorm, however, she learns that there's more to Morganville than there seems to be. The town is run by vampires. Yes, actual vampires that can't go out in the daytime and drink human blood at night. If Claire's not careful, it could end up being her blood they're drinking...

GLASS HOUSES is a great book for fans of vampire novels. Claire and her roommates are quite likeable as characters, and, perhaps making the book even better, the bad guys are just as easy to hate as the inhabitants of the Glass House are to like. In Morganville, Rachel Caine has created a mysterious, intriguing, and spooky town run by the undead (I was a bit reminded of Buffy's hometown of Sunnydale). The writing is great, and there are few flaws in this awesome book.

Claire doesn't ask nearly as many questions as might be expected of someone who had just been let in on the secret that she's living in a town run by vampires; it seems like that might be a way of keeping some questions and suspense in the story, but it struck me as a bit unrealistic while reading. Even with its minor flaws, though, this is a book that will have readers hooked and ready for more in this series!

Reviewed by: Jocelyn Pearce

I am always on the lookout for a good supernatural book, vampire and werewolves are my favourite and this one did not disappoint. I find that some supernatural books are a little hard to believe when told how main stream vamps are, but this one was easy to believe. The only thing that I found a little unbelievable was when Claire found out about vampires in the town of Morganville and just believed it so easily.

This book has a lot of suspense and I kept thinking about what was going to happen, kept thinking about what I had already read in-between picking the book up. I know that makes a good story for me when I am thinking about the story when I am at work or doing everyday things.

I am very excited to read "The dead girls dance". Glass houses ended on a very big note and I can't wait to see what happens.

This book has the suspense I love, the supernatural twists I love, the friendships that never falter that I love and most of all it has the perfect amount of romance that I love. The romance isn't clichéd or unbelievable, it doesn't happen to fast (which I don't particularly like in books) and it's just starting out. I can't wait to start the next book.

This series is good, i really got into it. What bugged me the most was how MANY loop holes there are to the story. The first time they mention the "protection" is was not at all clear. It took me forever (and i think a few books) to understand it. she never really explains it properly. There are a few WTF? moments but other than that its a good series. I would buy the books used and not new.