Bea Reviews Low Midnight by Carrie Vaughn

Publisher: Tor Books
Series: Kitty Norville #13
Format Read: eGalley
Source: publicist in exchange for an honest review 
Release Date: December 30, 2014
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | OmniLit* | Barnes & Noble |
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

Low Midnight spins out of the series on the wave of popularity surrounding Kitty's most popular supporting character, Cormac Bennett, a two-minded assassin of the paranormal who specializes in killing lycanthropes.

In his first solo adventure, Cormac, struggling with a foreign consciousness trapped inside him, investigates a century-old crime in a Colorado mining town which could be the key to translating a mysterious coded diary… a tome with secrets that could shatter Kitty's world and all who inhabit it.

With a framing sequence that features Kitty Norville herself, Low Midnight not only pushes the Kitty saga forward, but also illuminates Cormac's past and lays the groundwork for Kitty's future.

*This review first appeared at Romance at Random*

Bea's Thoughts:

Kitty fans tend to love or hate Cormac. I’m in the middle; I like him quite a bit but I don’t love him. He is a fascinating character – a former hunter and killer for hire of vamps, weres, and other supernatural beings, he’s now friends with Kitty, a werewolf, who’s married to his cousin Ben, also a werewolf. He went to prison for killing a shifter. Now out on parole, he’s trying to figure out what to do next with his life.

I have a love-hate relationship with the Kitty Norville books. Some I’ve enjoyed, some were meh, and a couple were just bad.  The last Kitty book, “Kitty in the Underworld”, was meh but the ending had promise and provided the storyline for this one. “Low Midnight” moves forward the story arc of the Long Game, though not as much as I’d like. What it does give us is Cormac’s story. Cormac and his ghost friend Amelia are the stars of the book; it’s told from his POV with Amelia’s scattered in here and there. Amelia is formal, a little prudish, bossy, and empathetic. Cormac is still the strong silent type but we also see that he has insecurities and that he’s still struggling with the family that he now has. He has people who care about and whom he cares about; he doesn’t quite know how to handle it. 

     The sense of obligation was…discomfiting. He didn’t like feeling that he owed them, or anyone, something. Loyalty was difficult. It was an anchor holding him in place. At the same time, knowing he belonged here, with people who wanted to see him-that was a prize…Yet here he was. The feeling of belonging was growing on him, like a pair of leather boots finally breaking in to mold to his feet.

Using the information Kitty gained in “Kitty in the Underworld”, Cormac and Amelia try to learn more about Roman, their vampire nemesis, and break the code in a wizard’s grimoire. That leads to Cormac and Amelia trying to solve a 100 year old mysterious death and deal with hunters from Cormac’s past. Cormac has changed, even more than he realized.

“Low Midnight” gives us some intriguing developments and we learn a lot more about both Cormac and Amelia. It’s a mix of character driven and plot driven and provides insight into both Cormac and Amelia. I would love to see them set up shop as paranormal investigators. 

ETA: Author Carrie Vaughn has posted an important update on the Kitty Norville series.