Kitty's Big Trouble [Mass Market Paperback]

Possible alternate titles: "Kitty Goes To San Francisco" and "Kitty Goes to Chinatown."

So guess where the ever-inquisitive Kitty Norville goes in "Kitty's Big Trouble," a shadowy, frantic scrabble for ancient magical artifacts and even more ancient Chinese deities. The beginning chapters feel rather disconnected from the rest of the story, but once the gang makes it to San Francisco the storyline becomes much smoother.

Kitty begins investigating historical figures --General Sherman, Wyatt Earp -- who may have had connections to the supernatural. And after a nasty encounter with a long-starved vampire, she's left with a coin necklace that may be connected to Roman. Unfortunately, not a lot of vampires know what it is, so she's sent off to find Anastasia in San Francisco.

However, Anastasia is more concerned with the Dragon's Pearl, a priceless artifact that Roman wants so he can expand his army exponentially. Kitty, Ben and the Ameliafied Cormac agree to help her find it before Roman does, and they soon discover that this is a dangerous proposition -- but they may have some allies even more powerful than vampires.

As an urban fantasy, "Kitty's Big Trouble" is solid but not the best of the series. It's a dark, grimy, action-packed story that immerses Kitty even more into the world, but it strays pretty far from Kitty's usual stomping grounds and cast. And there are some aspects of the plot -- Kitty's broken bone, the half-starved vampire -- that feel like they should have been more significant than they were.

However, the story gets much smoother once Kitty and Co. make it to Frisco, forming a tight rope of frenetic action and supernatural drama, but with some lighter moments (Cormac's "I escaped Alcatraz" shirt). And Vaughn splashes it liberally with Chinese folklore and religion, including a nine-tailed fox and a mysterious dude with a staff. I let a fangirl squeal when I read his name. And she doesn't wuss out on the religious implications of Chinese "gods" being real.

It's also interesting to see Kitty delving into the "hidden history," when she isn't showing her iron-hard determination to stop Roman. Without revealing too much, her determination means that she's now one of Roman's top enemies, and is squarely in the middle of the Long Game.

Vaughn also reveals a lot more about the beautiful, icy Anastasia's past -- If you didn't like her already, you will now -- and adds in the motherly Xiwangmu and the adorably quirky Sun Wukong. Here's hoping we'll see them again. However... Grace is ANNOYING. She whines and complains constantly about everything, and keeps bleating about how she didn't expect all this. Just shut up.

But despite a rocky beginning and an annoying human character, "Kitty's Big Trouble" is a decent addition to this series -- not perfect, but enjoyable and important to the story arc.

It's road trip time for Kitty Norville. Remember the vampire Anastasia from Kitty's House of Horrors? She's back and she's asking Kitty to come to San Francisco to retrieve an object of great power. Evil and super-old vampire Roman is after it too, so Kitty hits the road with Ben and Cormac, headed to the west coast.

The object, which Anastasia calls "the pearl" is hidden in the underground tunnels of Chinatown. And as our group of heroes goes searching for it, they get wrapped up in some ancient Chinese mythology. Kitty realizes, once again, how much she still doesn't know about the supernatural world. But even in the face of gods, she holds on to her fighting spirit and struggles to do the right thing, while protecting the two people she cares most about.

I suppose it sounds good at face value, but I felt unengaged for most of the book. Yes, there was a little danger, but I guess the key word here is little. There was virtually no tension for me to latch on to. I mean, the series has completely lost anything resembling a romantic or sexual tension. Ben is a nice guy; he loves Kitty; she loves him; blah, blah, blah. Cormac is there as some bizarre, possessed, third-wheel/bodyguard. Any excitement about any of them is long gone, as Vaughn has clearly made the Kitty/Ben pairing permanent and unshakeable.

There is also no personal investment in the story arc. Kitty is doing Anastasia a favor. Yeah, it has greater implications, but the entire mission feels removed from Kitty's life. It's not like Vaughn will kill off Kitty, Cormac or Ben ... and if she would have killed off Anastastia, Henry, Grace or Sun, I can't say I would have cared. So that leaves me... well... uninvested.

It wasn't a bad book. I liked it, but I didn't love it. It just kind of felt like a bridge to intensify the conflict between Kitty and Roman. 3 1/2 stars.

*ARC Provided by Tor Books

After the poignant and emotional "Goes to War", and the edge-of-your-seat horror of "House of Horrors", I was really looking forward to this one. I've loved this series from the beginning and was really looking forward to finding more about Roman and his plans. (I listened to the audio version, so please pardon the misspelling of any character names. I want to say that Margarete Gavin did an AWESOME job as narrator, as always!)

This really didn't live up to my expectations. Kitty didn't know what she was doing, why she was doing it, and her interactions with the new characters seemed really, really off. For example, her introduction to Sun. Injured or not, the Kitty I know would have grilled the guy at least long enough to make even the mellow grinning (spoiler spoiler spoiler) exasperated! The Dodge City/Wyatt Earp interlude went nowhere (surely it wasn't just about a coin and a bad pun?), the Sherman subplot was anticlimactic, Anastassia's back story was frankly something I expect to see in teenage angst fanfic (as in, how much bad stuff can you pile on a woman). And the endless scenes in the underground tunnels reminded me of a D&D dungeon crawl. (Cue scary monster #6. Encounter pit trap. Bunk down for the night to recover hit points. Roll initiative!) Maybe I'm just sore because I don't like Quest for the Uber-Powerful Magic Object plots anymore (too predictable, and there was no unique twist in this one), but this really didn't hold up to the previous books in the series. Even Roman and his actions seemed strangely inconsistent. I wanted to hear more about the new vamp (Harry, I think?) and he kinda vanished off the scene without a word. As for the potential love triangle, there are only bare whiffs of it in this novel. There's just enough to hint that potential Cormac/Kitty isn't over yet- and that Ben will have to die for it to happen. I like Ben. :( Strangely, the character I sympathized most with was the reluctant witch, Grace.

I can accept that there needed to be a filler book to introduce key plot elements for future stories. This book does a lot of setting up and foreshadowing and whatnot, but it's just kinda...meh. There's some very welcome bits of humor in there (especially the one involving Power Bars, which really cracked me up). Not BAD, just far from the tension and drama and quick pacing of her previous books in the series. I still have high hopes for the next book. 2 1/2 stars.