The Night Huntress Series Book #1: Halfway to the Grave by Jeaniene Frost

Popular books, of late, have lead me astray – I tried reading the Outlander series but barely made it 50 pages into the first book before calling it quits and barely made it four chapters into Seraphina before giving up – so when it came to Halfway to the Grave I didn’t mark it as ‘currently reading’ until I was almost halfway through.

Catherine – Cat – Crawfield is a twenty-two year-old college student who appears to be a normal girl sitting in a bar when the book begins, but as the first chapter unfolds you find out that Cat isn’t who she appears to be. No, instead she’s a half-breed – half-human and half-vampire – and she is hunting vampires in revenge for her mother who was raped by one twenty-two years ago. This night seems to be going differently than her previous ones. Instead of having a vamp come hit on her, she goes up to him and asks very bluntly – because he doesn’t seem to be falling for her usual sexiness – if he wants to fuck? He turns her away, much to Cat’s chagrin, and she finds another victim for the night. Feeling bold she goes back the next night, only to run into the vamp from the night before who turned her away. This time thought he’s ready for her, and they leave together.

The only problem is, this vamp knows what Cat is capable of – he followed her the night before – and he pulls a fast one on her. She wakes up in a cave shackled to a rock and in her underwear. The vamp – Bones – demands to know whom she is working for, and that’s when it is revealed that she’s a half-vampire. He doesn’t believe her at first, until he sees her eyes glow. He proposes a deal, if she helps him take out vampires, he’ll help her find her father. Cat agrees and the fun begins.

Where to even begin with how much I loved this book? The character of Cat reminded me a lot of myself – except for the whole half-vampire/assassin thing – but her cryptic views on love, her shyness, her naïveté when it came to sexual innuendo (seriously, I blushed with her every time Bones said something highly sexual). The character of Bones grew on me too, especially when I started picking up on his feelings for Cat – speaking of, the vampire club scene where he intentionally gives her a day off to spend with him was really cute and sexy. The overall plot was intriguing too – big bad vampire who Bones is after turns out to be the mastermind behind a blood whoring plot that goes very high up in the government. I just wished I had found out why exactly Bones was after Hennessy.

The only two things I didn’t like about this book were:

A. The character of Cat’s mom. I got where she was coming from with the whole anti-vampire thing because of what she went through. But to put all that onto her daughter was in poor taste. To basically squeal too on her daughter’s love affair with a vampire to those agents too, was just horrible. I kind of wished that the mom had died after that. Ugh.

B. The ENDING! Why is it that whenever a couple is going great, an author has to throw in this major complication that separates them or, like in Halfway to the Grave’s case, that causes the female interest to run away to protect the male? It’s frustrating, but it does make for some interesting reading.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. Great characters. Great plot. Great cliffhanger ending. Can’t wait to get my hands on book 2 and see what Bones is going to do.

Bookshelf worthy? I’m going to start stacking books on the floor, I swear.