The Morganville Vampires Vol 4.: Fade Out & Kiss of Death (The Morganville Vampires #7 & #8)
Author: Rachel Caine
Published: 2011
On Goodreads
My Rating: 
Rated N for the strange sense of normalcy that only a vampire town can bring.
Welcome to Morganville. You’ll never want to leave
And even if you do…well, you can’t.
Sorry about that.
Fade Out
After Bishop’s rule over Morganville and the great revolution that bring him down, life has changed – dramatically. Amelie, the vampire founder of the town, has decreed that new freedoms and rules will be made in hopes of creating a more united town. Claire Danvers and her friends can hardly believe it. Just as they seem to find a sense of normal, a filmmaker known to be a well-known stirrer of trouble goes missing while in the midst of making a documentary about vampires featuring vampires. Claire and her friends quickly gear up to find the filmmaker before the documentary leaks and their new freedoms are taken away.
Kiss of Death
A once in a lifetime opportunity comes knocking on the door of the Glass House for Michael Glass. A music producer wants him on their music label after watching one of his amazing performances, but first, he’ll need to record a demo at the studio in Dallas.
Road trip! Except unlike his friends, Claire Danvers and Shane Collins, he and Eve have never been outside Morganville. They get a crash course as they get mixed up with some dangerous people and then get caught in a war between humans and vampires in town so small that you’d miss it if you blinked. On a tight schedule, Michael, Claire, Shane, and Eve will have to figure out something quick or they may not miss the recording meeting or miss it altogether.
The Morganville Vampires series is 1 of 3 that I am rereading as a part of my New Year’s Resolution. This is 8 of 15 books.
The Morganville Vampires Reviews
The Morganville Vampires Vol. 1: Glass Houses & The Dead Girls’ Dance
The Morganville Vampires Vol. 2: Midnight Alley & Feast of Fools
The Morganville Vampires Vol. 3: Lord of Misrule & Carpe Corpus
This is such a great volume in the world of MV. There’s been so much supernatural badassery happening in the last 6 volumes that you get struck off-kilter by something that seems so…normal. It’s sad that threatening videos that could leak to the public and a road trip could seem so normal, but it really does in Morganville. However, it’s no less dangerous for the town.
Claire Danvers experiences a wide array of things she never thought she would. From jealousy to insecurity and it’s so natural and relatable. She knows what she’s got with the Glass House and her friends and boyfriend and she doesn’t want to lose it. She refuses to. To have such feelings when someone like Kim in Fade Out comes around is understandable. I would totally stomp someone like her. She’s legit a wheel that nobody asked for and I did not enjoy how she nearly destroyed the Glass House. She truly was an unlikeable character. Attention-seeking, drama-turning, obnoxious, and untrustworthy. Just, ew. Buuuut, sometimes those types of people draw in others. It’s as if they’ve got some sort of spotlight on them and draws people in, like a bug-zapper. The real ones don’t let someone like that hypnotize them with their drama though. It’s why I loved Shane even more than possible in this book. He didn’t give Kim a second glance and was the one to remind Claire just how kickass she is. Let’s be real, getting that kind of reminder is nice from time to time.
The idea of a video showing off all of Morganville’s dirty laundry is enough to make anyone freak. While in today’s world social media is basically an extra limb, in Morganville it’s like a horrible poison that could destroy them if it touched them. Let’s be honest, while extra blood would be great for the vampire population because of the exposure, the possibility of the town getting nuked isn’t so good. Not for anybody. The fact that this wasn’t just a vampire problem but an everybody problem really grabbed me. Everybody was affected and that amped up why I love this series so much. It’s always growing and changing and twisting and turning. I was hooked, wondering if Morganville had really changed or if it kept its old, bloody ways when it came to capturing the one behind it. Such a change will change everything once known before all of this. And while change isn’t easy for anyone, it’s not bad and it has a ripple effect. That ripple effect is a part of what’s left Morganville in serious danger later on down the line.
Ada, the old love of Myrnin and the great computer of the crazy vampire’s own making meant for protecting the town had jealousy fits of her own. It’s strange to imagine a computer being so humane, but when it’s fueled by a vampire’s brain, not so much. Amid all of the video footage exposing things that should never be exposed, Claire had to watch her step or she risked ending up vamp-chow. The glitch is only the beginning to the next big plot to save Morganville and challenge her, but what a villain. Smart, tactical, and quite sociopathic. Genius.
Kiss of Death left Morganville and hit the road to Dallas. However, an unexpected pit stop puts Michael, Claire, Shane, and Eve in danger. Oh, and Oliver, because you can’t go anywhere without a deadly escort that hates fun. LOL. Who would’ve thought we’d get to leave the Texas, vampire town? Then end up in another vampire infested town…Turns out that the deadly vampire, Bishop made a stop of his own before coming to Morganville and he left behind a mess. What makes this trip wilder is that one of Claire’s messes by the name of Morley gets tangled up in it. It’s a real shit-show for everyone.
This was one of my favorite adventures because not only did the group get to leave Morganville, they still faced problems of the vampire variety. They just can’t catch a break! Claire also got to use a bow, which was really awesome. New weapons are always exciting. Even more, Claire and Shane had more domain in this area. They knew how it was to live outside Morganville. There is such a major difference. For one, no vampires…usually. And the social life is completely different and therefore a different kind of scary. I was glad they got to step up. I feel like Claire gets looked at as naïve too much and this gave her a leg-up. A leg-up to badass.
Morley who rose up from the Morganville sewers, making his appearance in this volume, is such a squirrely vampire. Like, he doesn’t make me nervous or anything. Granted, he’s still deadly, but I really like how he took charge, not because he wanted to kill but because he had his own plans. He’s so different from Oliver and Amelie. Those two are playing chess and he doesn’t want to. Of course, there are still death threats, but there’s a strange air of sincerity and kindness in them. He doesn’t want to have to hurt people. He just wants out. If anyone could relate to that in Kiss of Death it was the Glass House. So, while he wasn’t a trustworthy ally, because, duh, he’d eat everyone, I liked him. Definitely a favorite next to Sam and Myrnin.
Overall
Still in love with Morganville! You can’t change my mind. Don’t even try. Each book is drastically different and leaves me extremely needy and sometimes emotional. Just sugar, spice, some nice and a bucket of blood. This volume pulled out all the stops in changing the game. After these events, Morganville has been put in some serious danger. What naturally protects it is at risk and I love the way Caine foreshadowed it. It left me reaching for the next book! Truly, I can’t recommend this series enough. Friendship. Love. Deadly adventure you might not survive. Vampires.
Quotables:
“Any fool can kill. It takes a genius to create.” (Fade Out, Myrnin, p. 77)
“Morganville was a dangerous place. Every goodbye could be the last.” (Fade Out, p. 184)
“In Morganville, when you’re not one of the sheep, and you’re not one of the wolves, you’d better be one mean-ass junkyard dog.” (Jason, p. 238)
More to come soon…
-K.
P.S. Song today? Welcome to My Life by Simple Plan.
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The Scarlet Reader 
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