Book Log #85: Midnight Alley, by Rachel Caine

Midnight Alley is the third in rachelcaine's Morganville Vampire series, and as with the second installment, pretty much picks up right where the previous one left off. If you haven't read the first two, you won't want to start with this one. Plot points set up in the first two volumes have significant impact on the characters here, as the world in which our young heroine Claire is now well and thoroughly trapped grows slowly darker. Claire learns more and more secrets about the vampires of Morganville--and now, with her own position in the town having changed, discovers that her new status is bringing her all sorts of unwanted attention.

As with previous Caine books, the pacing remains excellent--though one may wonder how long Claire and Shane can keep up the sexual tension while also keeping in mind that Claire is a minor. This is another series, too, that really rather reads like one long novel; ending on a cliffhanger note seems to be a thing now, which may put off readers who prefer to have a more self-contained story in each volume. Still, though, fun read. Three stars.

Book Log #86: The Missing, by Sarah Langan

Sarah Langan's The Missing is a sequel to the book of hers I read at the beginning of this year--in fact, the very first book I read for this year's Book Log, The Keeper. Like the first installment, The Missing is a very grim, very dark read, introducing several characters just long enough to let you get a feel for them before mowing them down in suitably gruesome fashion. This time around, though, the story's much grimmer--and even in the midst of so much destruction, hardly anyone achieves the same sort of spiritual resolution that you see happening in The Keeper. A couple of characters do achieve an escape of sorts, but given the circumstances of the ending, it's hard to see what sort of future they'll be having.

Which brings me to the overall flavor of this book. The Missing is essentially a zombie novel, though the word 'zombie' is never used. The word 'infected', on the other hand, is all over the place--as is the strong indication that the virus sweeping through Corpus Christi is breaking out to threaten the rest of the country and possibly the world. Part of me was vaguely disappointed to see this essentially being a zombie book, since that felt less original than The Keeper. On the other hand, Langan's strong characterization was still in evidence here, and I'm definitely intrigued by the question of whether there will be a third book to finish off what's clearly intended to be a series, and whether there will be a ray of hope for any of the survivors of the plague she's unleashed upon her world. Three and a half stars.