4.5/5

Well, it definitely left me breathless because I was laughing too hard through most of the book.

Wolf Night was wonderful and it satisfied a craving for a popular vampire culture pisstake. I remember liking book #1, Dark Dates, but since then Tracey settled into the genre comfortably and her writing got considerably better.

The thing is, the plot is good and it's pure urban fantasy, but it's the banter between the characters which really gets you.

Laclos for example who is a spitting image of Jean-Claude from Anita Blake's series and a 2000-year old vampire ruling London doesn't take himself seriously and plays on cultural cliches.

“I have tried to be romantic, have I not? I have flirted, I have charmed – and I am well aware of just how charming I can be – and I have been attentive. I have sent you some of the finest wines money can buy…”

“Oh. So, I probably shouldn’t be drinking them like cheap plonk, should I?” I frowned, guiltily, and he flashed me a brief, appalled glance. I think it was the first time I’d properly shocked him.

“Once I get to the stage of bringing you actual furniture, I am afraid I am running out of ideas, beyond swooping through your bedroom windows in a velvet cloak and watching you while you sleep – which not only has been done to death by my predecessors, but is, I think you’ll agree, actually slightly creepy. So, no, this is not romantic. But I was rather under the impression that you were tired of hollow romantic gestures, when they come from a basis of untruth.”

I frowned at him. He had me there. I really wasn’t doing that well in this argument. As usual, I tried to mask my confusion with humour.

“You totally have a velvet cape, don’t you?”

He allowed himself a small smile, then turned the full force of that dark gaze on me.

“Would it help if I put it on?”

Also Cass herself is full of witty comebacks, but as an owner of dating agency which helps to bring vampires and wannabies together she's seen it all and treats vamps who are entirely self-absorbed for their own good with a great measure of sarcasm.

“Did it ever occur to you, Laclos, that your bodyguards wouldn’t keep turning on you if you weren’t such a twat to them?”

But this is just a tip of he iceberg. There is wonderful Medea, a witch, who is getting married to her partner shifter Katie, and of course there is delicious Cain, a supernatural monster killer, whom Cass has been attracted to all her life.

The drawback of Dark Dates which I've mentioned before, weak characterization of the main heroes of the book, disappears in Wolf Night. The reader has no problem seeing Cass, Laclos, Cain, Medea and Katie and understanding their motivation which really makes book #2 so much stronger and so much more pleasurable.

If the big bad of Dark Dates was a vampire, this time Cass and Co. have to fight a nasty bunch of Scottish werewolves, causing chaos in their beloved city. Wolf Night is dark, snarkalicious and explores what it's like to be a supernatural in modern world, crazy on Twilight, True Blood and Winchester brothers.

Highly recommended. ( )

Things have sort of briefly stabilized for Cassandra. Though she is sad that Cain has once again taken off, Laclos' investment in her business has allowed her to keep running Dark Dates and arranging parties for humans and vampires to meet. Then Medea her assistant and Wiccan friend breaks some very exciting news - she's proposed to her girlfriend Kate and they are going to get married. Having no friends and her parents long dead, Kate and Medea have become defacto family. Though Medea insists on wanting a small ceremony, Cassie decides that they must simply have a hen night, which leads to her inadvertently breaking a very important spell cast by Medea. It's not long before Cassandra is fending off, werewolves and wiccans. If that were not bad enough, Cane returns to town the same day that Cassandra finally sleeps with Lacolos, the two thousand year old vampire. Then, proving that bad things happens in threes, her ex boyfriend Sebastian shows up.

Though there was a lot going on in Wolf Night, it got off to a really slow start. This surprised me but by the middle of the book, it really took off. It further didn't help that the ending was all tell and not show. I thought having the bad guy explain his motivation and confess his misdeeds went out with Perry Mason. It's not an artful approach and reads like and info dump because of an inability to wrap up loose ends.

The protagonist Cassandra, who is still terribly insecure became a major issue for me in terms of enjoying Wolf Night and I found myself reading for the ancillary characters, rather than her. Women essentially exist to be competition and remind Cassandra that she is not good enough and this even includes her best friend Medea.

OK, so it wasn’t just the vampires who could make me feel frumpy. If she wasn’t great at her job, really very nice, pretty much my only friend and one of the people who helped me save a city less than a year ago, I might’ve had to hate her. Medea’s magical mojo aside, the rest of the humans were pure vanilla (pg3)

Tall and blonde, she looked like the term ‘ethereal’ had been coined for her: think Cate Blanchett in Lord of the Rings, without the pointy ears. Her outfit was very Wicca-chic – a long, loose skirt that flowed around her slender frame, and a floaty, scoop necked top revealing clavicles you could slice your hands on. Was it my fate to be surrounded by women who made me feel like a dishevelled hag? Maybe all Wiccans used the same spell. Clearly she was used to the effect she had on people, because she didn’t look remotely discombobulated by the fact it took me a good couple of minutes to stop staring and pull myself together enough to speak. (pg 34)

The second quote is in reference to a former lover of Madea's. As you might imagine, this gets tiresome quickly. There has to be something in between the protagonist who is drop dead gorgeous, and doesn't even try and the one (in this case Cassandra) who has such low self esteem that she is in the shadow of every single woman she meets. In this case, this sort of self loathing is particularly unrealistic, as Cassandra is actively being pursued by an angel and a two thousand year old vampire. I can only hope that by the time the third book in this series comes out that Cassandra will leave this annoying tendency behind.

The one thing Cassandra is certain about is what she will and will not accept in a relationship. The infamous handbag makes it appearance when Laclos decides to bite Cassandra without her permission. She makes it absolutely clear that he is never ever to bite her without asking. Laclos believed that because she had said yes once that it gave him tacit permission to feed from her at will. He pulled out the typical vampire line of being able to sense her arousal but Cassandra was absolutely adamant that consent is something that needs to be sought each and every time. I think that this is an extremely important message because enthusiastic consent is something that is so necessary to push because of the pervasiveness of rape culture.


One of the things I love about this series is its great diversity. There are a few characters of color and several bisexual and lesbian characters. I absolutely adore the loving relationship between Medea and Kate and it it is worth noting that their relationship this is the only committed, significant relationship in the series to date. My one issue is that while Medea explains that homophobia is something they have had to deal with, people seem to be more upset that she is Wiccan and Kate is a shifter. This displaces the problems that Medea and Kate would have had to face as an interracial lesbian couple. No fake oppression should every override the lived oppression which historically marginalized people have to negotiate.

Though Cassandra clearly has a lot of respect for Kate and Medea, the idea that she herself might be perceived of as gay bothers her.

And would it be… you that she is marrying?” I wasn’t sure whether to be insulted that she assumed I was gay, or flattered she thought I could bag a woman as hot as Medea. “No, no. Not me. We just work together. I’m organising…. Planning a surprise.” “Well, that’s very nice of you,” she said. (pg 36)

If Cassandra really had left her heterosexual privilege behind, being thought of as gay would not have been conceived of as an insult. It can only be insulting, if someone thinks that there is something wrong with being gay. It further did not help that she continually corrected herself and said Medea and Kate were getting "civil partnered." While civil partnership is allowed in the U.K. and not marriage, it is clear that Medea sees her impending nuptials as marriage and it is therefore problematic that Cassandra would refer to it differently. It's a way of inferring agreement of the limitations enforced by the law and implies that Cassandra views their relationship as secondary to her heterosexual entanglements.

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