Book Review: Rachel Caine's Ghost Town

Rachel Caine’s Ghost Town, Book 9 in the Morganville Vampires series, was easily another thriller. I meant to review this some time ago, but then time slipped away from me.  That happens, you know.  It’s called life.  Anyway, the series was/is one of my favorite young adult series.  Despite targeting the youngsters, it has crossover appeal that continues to outlast most series.  If you haven’t read the series, take a moment to peruse my previous reviews. Glass Houses, The Dead Girls Dance, Midnight Alley, and Kiss of Death.

I’ll do my best not to mention too many spoilers, but it may just happen.  I apologize in advance if I go overboard.  Where to begin?  Ah…the town of Morganville.  Yes.  Morganville has its boundaries, you know.  And those parameters are watched/guarded against vampires and humans alike.  Like the roach motel, you can check in but you can almost never check out – thanks to the town’s mystical borders.  In previous books, we’ve learned just how those borders were kept; by some freakish “steampunky” device which used the brain of Myrnin’s former vampire assistant, Ada.  It needed a brain as its CPU, Myrnin insisted.  After Ada departed, he wanted Claire’s brilliant mind to fill that position.  Claire obviously declined that promotion.

In a bizarre twist, Claire fixes the machine/computer and in less than 48 hours, Myrnin screws it up, wiping 3 years worth of memories of Morganville residents (vamps & humans.)  The story starts out with mild hysteria building and quickly burst into full blown chaos.  Humans are losing it, crazed with amnesia and then worse, the vamps become afflicted too.  In fact, they become so enraged; they outright kill/maim anything that crosses their paths.

What I love best about this series are three things.  First, the books are always fast-paced thrillers.  Action. Action.  Action.  Need I say more?  Second, there’s a steady, frightening undertone of impending doom that permeates throughout Caine’s novels.  I for one would not want to visit Morganville, ever!  I mean who can Claire and her friends trust?  No one.  Even Michaels’s friendship is questionable at times because he is - after all - one of them…a vampire.   Lastly, the characters…I can’t say enough about the characters.  They are so beautifully complicated, vulnerable and imperfect that in short instances, you see the humanity in the vamps and the beastly nature of the humans.

This book was another 4 for me.  Now it’s your turn to get your Morganvill fix. Read Rachel Caine’s Ghost Town and hurry because this May is the release of Book 10 in the series, Bite Club.

Until next time…The Morganville Vamps are to die for.

Mina B.