Review: Glass Houses by Rachel Caine

My Rating: E, P, B

Published: October 2006
Publisher: NAL Jam

Author's Website: rachelcaine.com

Purchase @ Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com

Morganville is a small college town filled with unusual characters. But when the sun goes down, the bad come out. Because in Morganville, there is an evil that lurks in the darkest shadows – one that will spill into the bright light of day.

For Claire Danvers, high school was hell, but college may be murder. It was bad enough that she got on the wrong side of Monica, the meanest of the school’s mean girls, but now she’s got three new roommates, who all have secrets of their own. And the biggest secret of all isn’t really a secret, except from Claire: Morganville is run by vampires, and they are hungry for fresh blood…

Glass Houses is the spectacular first novel in the Morganville Vampires series by Rachel Caine. This book is full of constant surprises; I was honestly shocked at certain parts. Rachel Caine has brought vampires into a new light for me.

Claire is just your ordinary, blissfully unaware, super smart teenager. She has managed to get into college early but because her parents didn’t want her to move thousands of miles away, they settled on the college in Morganville. Going to college here has been hell for Claire as she has an enemy in the form of Monica. But Monica isn’t your typical school bully, she is much worse. Hell hath no fury like a little jumped up snobby princess scorned (at least that’s what I think of her). Whatever you do, don’t correct her on her history.

My favourite part of this book was when Claire first arrives at Glass Houses and Eve meets her and makes her feel totally at home. The scene and chapters after this make this book worthwhile. There are so many plot twists and turns that frankly I didn’t see any of the bad stuff coming. Yeah I knew there would be bad stuff happening at some point, but it still caught me totally off guard as to who the bad guy was.

Shane has to be my favourite character from this book. He is so funny, intelligent and then there is this melancholic side of him. He has a troubled past and all I can say is kudos to him for coming back to this town an facing his demons. If I were him I would have left and never came back. Michael is another troubled character for an entirely different reason. As much as I think he would love to leave this town, he can’t. He’s stuck there for the rest of his days.

Monica is my least favourite character but then you have to have a bitch/villain in a book. She does make things interesting for the other characters mentioned in the book. Monica has a past with a certain character, but I don’t want to say too much on that as it will spoil the story for you.

This is certainly a book to read if you are into vampires. I thought it was a fresh perspective on vampires compared to other books. These vampires seem to be more powerful than the norm, I don’t know how to describe why I think this but it’s what I think when I read about them. The powerful spells they must be able to cast most likely contributes to this. These vampires have the humans in Morganville under their thumb and a lot of them don’t even know it. The ending is left on such a cliff-hanger that I can’t wait to read the second instalment, The Dead Girl’s Dance.

Disclaimer: I do not own this book and I am not paid to review this book. Everything I have said is of my honest opinion.