Halfway to the Grave

Today's post is on 'Halfway to the Grave' by Jeaniene Frost. It is published by Avon which is an imprint of HarperCollins. It is 358 pages long. The cover has the main character in a short black dress with thigh-high boots and a silver dagger. The intended reader is urban fantasy lovers. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

Catherine (Cat) Crawfield is a vampire hunter. Not just any vampire hunter but one who is half vampire herself. Her mother was date raped and five months later Cat was born. Her mother hates all vampires. She has been telling Cat that she has to fight the evil in her because of her father. Cat kills vamps who think that she is a little dumb girl that they can eat. For eight years Cat has been doing this until one night she picks the wrong guy. He knocks her out and when she wakes up tied up. He wants to know who she works for. Cat tells him no one. Of course he does not believe her. But then she flashes her eyes at him, something only a vampire can do, and he believes her. His name is Bones and he hunts vamps too. Bones decides to train her so that they can hunt bigger targets together. Over the course of the story they fall in love. But the story is really about Cat learning that her world is much bigger than she knew. There vamps who do not kill their victims, there are humans who like to be fed from, there are ghouls and ghosts. The big bad in this novel is a vampire who is kidnapping young women. He is taking them and making them slaves that other vamps rape and feed from. In the end Cat learns that vamps are not the only bad guys in the world and sometimes they do not work alone.

I was not sure that I was going to like this story. I am not a vampire person. They just do not do it for me. But Cat won me over. I like that she believes in what she is doing. She tries to make the world a better place in anyway she can. Once she sees that not all vampires are just soulless killers, she lets go of her preconceived notions. She learns to accept herself for who she is not what. By chapter three I was really having fun with this book. Bones is interesting and fun. He is very honest with Cat about the world and how he feels for her. It is the dialog that fuels the character growth and plot. Cat's mother does her purpose of making the reader feel bad for Cat. She had to grow up with a mother who hated her on some level. The action scenes are okay but not the best part of the story. I will be reading the rest of the series with pleasure.

I give it a solid Four stars.