Glass Houses (The Morganville Vampires) [Kindle Edition]

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 love Rachel Caine's Weather Warden series and was keen to read this, the first in a new series subtitled "The Morganville Vampires". However, this book is VERY different from the Weather Warden series - our heroine is a 16 year old girl going off to College. As an English woman the American college system seems very bizarre at the best of times but Claire's experiences in her first six weeks at her new college in Morganville are even stranger. She's a bit of a brainy nerd and pretty soon falls foul of Monica, the 'cool but dim' girl who, with her acolytes, virtually runs the college. They gang up against Claire and, in order to escape various attempts to harm her, some successful, Claire moves out and starts living in an old house with two young men, Shane and Michael, and a goth girl, Eve. Once there she begins to find out some very strange things about the town of Morganville, its residents and the rules that she needs to know to be protected from the evil things out there.

Claire's discoveries of the strange events that take place in Morganville unfold through the course of the book - she discovers vampires, ghosts, a long-lost secret book - whilst having to deal with injuries, a crush on one of the young men in her house and her parents' protectiveness.

The book moves along fairly swiftly and it's interesting and well-written but I can't give it more than three stars because, for me, it was unsatisfying as it was more a book for teenagers. I'm over twice Claire's age and I just can't identify with her - or even with the setting of the college and the events taking place there. Probably it's great fun for young adults who are interested in the vampire genre but don't want anything too gory or too full of sex. I expected another novel like the Weather Warden series for adults and the information on the book's cover didn't warn me otherwise.

Below is a list of all of the books in order that are in the series so far

Glass House
The Dead Girls' Dance
Midnight Alley
Feast of Fools
Lord of Misrule
Carpe Corpus
Fade Out
Kiss of Death
Ghost Town

Let me just begin by saying that I am a huge fan of this series and If you haven't started reading it, do so right now. I read the complete thing (books 1-9) in less than a week. It was that addicting. Anyways, like the other books, Ghost Town was beautifully written and included all of the elements that I love about this series. There is tons of mystery, excitement, romance and humor.I have to admit, I was a bit skeptical going into book 9, I mean usually by this point, a series starts to go off the deep end. Honestly, how far can you take the same set of characters? And how exactly do you follow up a villian like Bishop? But somehow Caine managed to keep things going strong, by pulling out all the stops. Tell me what is more frightening than having everyone you know and love forget you? Claire is as feisty and determined as ever. She, once again, gets herself in an undesirable predicament. As a punishment, she is forced to fix the machine that wipes the memories of those who leave Morganville. Well, of course, something goes wrong and people (and vampires) start loosing their memories. Those who are infected are taken back mentally to three years ago. Let's just say that chaos ensues. Soon, Claire has no choice but to try and fix the machine and she is forced to make some unlikely alliances along the way. There is plenty of excitement within the book, just like you would come to expect from this series. There are also a number of twists throughout the plot, I don't want to give too much away, but they certainly keep you on your toes. All of your favorite characters are back and ready for action, Eve, Michael, Shane, Mrynin, Amelie and Oliver are all featured throughout the book. I think what makes this series so great is the relationships between the characters. Not only are there great romantic relationships, but there are also a number of awesome friendships. I love the fab four - Claire, Shane, Eve and Michael; I just think they mesh well together. They always have each others back and each one of them would put themselves on the line for the other three. The connection these characters have is really a focus in this book - especially when people start loosing their memories. Caine really does a beautiful job showing how they all sort of gravitate towards each other. All in all, Ghost Town was a great addition to the series. Everything that you love about this series continues in book 9, including the sarcasm, humor, excitement, danger, romance and superb storytelling. I'll say it again, if you haven't read this series yet, you really, really, need to. It is never to late to dive into a series, in fact I prefer it because you don't have to wait as long to see what happens next!