TBR Day: Kitty and the Silver Bullet by Carrie Vaughn

This one has been in the TBR forever. In fact, I'm pretty sure I started reading it in 2008! I'm not sure what the hangup was, besides the fact that I haven't been reading much at all. This is the fourth book in the Kitty Norville series and while I'll try to review it without spoilers, it is bound to happen a little.

Kitty and the Silver Bullet is (as I just said) the fourth book in this series. In this one, Kitty has been called back to Denver by her family and has no choice but to go. She hopes to lie low and escape unnoticed by the other supernatural beings, but if that were to happen we wouldn't have much of a plot, now would we? So Kitty and Ben head back to Ben's old apartment and try to stay out of politics. They are approached by a beaten down werewolf from Kitty's old pack, and since she reminds Kitty so much of herself, she has no choice but to help. This all goes terribly awry, of course, and now her old pack leader Carl knows she's back in town. While this is all going on, the vampires have a little revolt of their own happening with Rick and Arturo vying for position of Top Vampire in Denver. There is a little bit of treachery involved there (isn't there always treachery with vampires?) and some collusion between the werewolves and vampires to see who's toughest.

Kitty is a great heroine. I know, I say this alot, but in terms of werewolves, who seem to have two positions- alpha leader or beaten down submissive- Kitty stands out as both reasonable and aware. She is scared when she should be, she takes charge when she should, and she knows how to control her wolf when she should. There are several scenes in this one that show just how human Kitty still is (oddly those scenes are also the ones where the wolf wants to take over.) Her relationship with Ben is full of questions- are they together because they love each other or are they together because the wolves demand it? Vaughn almost gets a bit to obvious with this, but in the end works it out. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Ben, we don't get to see in his head and he pretty much does whatever Kitty wants. While this is great in your hero, it doesn't give a lot of dimension to the character.

The ending is satisfying. Things are changing for Kitty, and in a good way. Detective Hardin is a good addition to the story, reminding me a bit of Detective Murphy in the Dresden series (another series I really need to catch up in!) I look forward to seeing how Kitty handles her new position and the responsibility of it all. This probably isn't my favorite paranormal series, but it's pretty solid and worth reading.

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