Carpe Corpus by Rachel Caine - WARNING! I cannot review Carpe Corpus without spoiling the first five books in the Morganville Vampire series. Do not read any further if you plan on reading any of the prior books.
The extremely strong and powerful vampire Mr Bishop has taken complete control of Morganville. Claire is forced to do his bidding because of a magical tattoo he has put on her, Michael has been bitten by him and is now under his control, Shane is locked up in prison with his Dad, and Eve wants nothing to do with Claire. Amelie has gone into hiding, and Myrnin has sided with Bishop. Things are pretty much screwed for Claire.
That is until she finds out that Amelie is gathering those who are still loyal to her underground, and that Myrnin and Michael are playing spies. With a plan in the works, moves are made – but on both sides. Bishop is not going to hand over control of Morganville without a fight, and plans to destroy all those who are against him, human and vamp alike. There’s a race against the clock with predicting and outmanoeuvring the opponent to be getting on with, and Claire’s ready to get her hands dirty.
I love Rachel Caine, and I love this series. And you know what? I LOVE Carpe Corpus!
Compared to the other novels in the series, there is a lot more build up to the action and fighting at the beginning of the book, but that doesn’t make this book any less amazing. It’s like a game of chess, but with a whole lot of thinking and planning before acting done, and it’s just awesome seeing all the characters we come to love (and hate, in Oliver’s case) trying to work together to come up with a way to defeat what seems the undefeatable, when there is very little power left in their hands.
When the action does kick in, though, it’s a classic Morganville adrenalin fest! I won’t spoil it for you, but plans can always go haywire, and when it comes to having no time to think but just act, anything can go wrong. You’ll seriously be reading with bated breath trying to work out what the outcome will be! It’s as exciting as ever!
Our favourite characters are back! Michael, Shane, Claire and Eve are downtrodden, but their personalities still shine through; Michael is still charming, Shane is still acts before he thinks, Claire is still practical, and Eve is still sarcastic. They’re all just a little desperate too. And there is a development with some of these characters. I won’t spoil it, but will say, Rachel; good job!
The one issue I have with this book is that a certain plot line was resolved at the very end of the book, almost like an afterthought. I’m probably wrong, but it just read like it was added in during revisions; a bit of drama at the end added to make it personal to Claire, and a scene inserted further on in the book, so Claire we knew certain characters. It wasn’t necessarily badly written, it’s just seemed a little odd to read when the main story of the book came to its end, and then there was this extra bit at the end of the book. It’s probably the link to the next book in the series, just not as cliff-hanger-y. It was just a little weird. I still loved the book though!
As a bonus, UK readers get an short story in their copy of the book from Shane’s point of view, about him buying a car. Pretty nifty!