Morganville Vampires Series Book #5: Lord of Misrule by Rachel Caine

You would think, after reading four volumes in this series, I would know to expect the unexpected when it comes to plot points in these books and to expect a cliffhanger at the end of the novel. You would think that, but for some stupid reason, as I read and finished Lord of Misrule I literally had my jaw drop open a few times, and threw my hands in the air when it finished with a cliffhanger.

Now, honestly, I was expecting something completely different from what Lord of Misrule actually offered and I’m glad that it did. I was expecting for a boring, bloody war between Amelie and her father Bishop and even though, yeah, the war was bloody, it was definitely far from boring.

Vampires walking around like zombies in the sun! Oliver admitting to the fact that he has the disease! Monica finally, finally getting what was coming to her! Monica’s father succumbing not to a vampire attack, but to a heart attack! Tornadoes! And just in case that wasn’t enough, crazy psycho magic that makes Claire – out of all the characters – side with the wrong side.

This book should not have been titled Lord of Misrule – although I do get the reference – instead it should have been called Morganville: Clusterfuck time. I mean, honestly, I didn’t think I could handle anything else Rachel Caine would have thrown at me. It was getting very hard to breathe while reading this book because I was holding it as I continued reading.

I got to admit though, as crazy as the events in this book caught, Caine still stuck true to her usual writing style. Just when you think you can’t take any more of the tension from Claire and the others situation, she throws in her usual sarcastic wit. Take for example the scene when Claire rescues Monica from the human mob and Eve and Shane realize that she has to stay with them:

“Yeah? Well, I can’t,” Eve said. She glared at Monica, who glared right back. “Claire, you have to stop picking up strays. You don’t know where they’ve been.”

“You’re one to talk about diseases,” Monica shot back, “seeing as how you’re one big, walking social one.”

“That’s not pit, kettle – that’s more like cauldron, kettle. Witch.”

“Whore!”

“You want to go play with your new friends back there?” Shane snapped. “The really pale ones with the taste for plasma? Because believe me. I’ll drop your skanky butt right in their nest if you don’t shut up, Monica.”

“You don’t scare me, Collins!”

Hannah rolled her eyes and racked her shotgun. “How about me?”

That ended the entire argument.

I was on the floor with this one for a little bit.

As much as I loved the turmoil in this book there were a few things that annoyed me. The first thing, is when everyone in the Glass House is getting ready to start the war for Amelie against her father, and Shane and Claire are saying their good-byes. She gets really annoyed with him that he didn’t tell her those three little words even though he’s going out to man the Blood Mobile and something bad could happen to him. As much as I love Claire, she picks the worst time to gripe on the fact that Shane hasn’t said those three little words yet. I mean, honestly, the town is going to hell in a hand basket and instead of enjoying the time she has left with him until he goes out on what could be a suicide mission, she over thinks the fact that he hasn’t said “I love you,” yet. C’mon Claire! I thought you were better than that!

The other thing has to deal with Claire’s parents. After some of the craziness has died down, she goes to visit them and her father brings up the fact that he would feel better about all of this if Claire moved back home with them. Claire originally thought that the whole protectiveness thing was because of a spell that Bishop put on them, but after her father tells her this, she wonders if it’s because it’s just a natural parental instinct.

I’m not going lie, besides Monica, the other characters that I can’t stand in this book series are Claire’s parents. They are absolutely horrible creatures. When Claire thinks this though, I completely lost it. How can it be a parental instinct to have her at home to keep her safe when they haven’t wanted to keep her safe before? When she was dealing with the whole bullying thing with Monica? I mean, they thought Monica was a nice person even though they knew that she had pushed their daughter down the stairs and had one of her friends splash acid on her? I mean, honestly, if I could, I would have slapped their faces.

Final rating: 4 out of 5 stars. Definitely better than the previous three novels, and I was really excited to find out what happens next.

Bookshelf worthy? As I said with the last book, this series is just too long to actually purchase them.