Halfway to the Grave

This was a re-read from years and years ago. *sigh* I totally forgot how good it was, even now I'm like... I HAVE TO READ MORE!
That's what Cat and Bones do to you ;)

Worldbuilding:
A rich (and volatile) present-day urban fantasy, what more do you want? We have sentient ghosts, English vampires and who knows what else out there.
While Cat is part of the supernatural scene, she doesn't know much about it, so we get all the info alongside her. There never is an information dump, but we slowly and steadily get to know what's going on in the vampire world and how close it is tied to our own.
Scenes and environments were very well described and detailed enough to stay fully immersed in the story.

Character development:
Our cast is amazing, show more seriously. Prepare to get emotionally invested and enjoy the wild ride.
Catherine, but call her Cat, is a hybrid: half-human and half-vampire. She has been hunting and killing vampires for the last 6 years until one fateful night she met Bones. Ahhhh where to start... I really like that he's so different from the usual vampire stock (as in not dark and broody). I mean, he's English! :D
Both of our main characters are well fleshed out, with a colourful past, their own fears, hopes and dreams for the future.
I don't know, but Cat and Bones just make such an awesome pair. Yes, they kick ass and protect each other, but it goes way deeper and that just makes me sigh with a grin on my face.

Pacing and flow:
As I've said before, it's a wild ride, but sooooo worth it! There is a lot of action going on but perfectly balanced by the conversations that drive the story forward.
There wasn't any part that I felt took too long or felt rushed. The story was told at its own pace and that was perfect.

The book:
The book itself was well written with no (noticeable) errors. There is sex described (if that is important to you).
It's 358 pages long, spread over 27 chapters and told from Cat's point of view.

Final thoughts:
To hell with it, I'm reading the next book immediately afterwards! I can't recommend this series often enough, even if you're not sure, read a sample and you'll be as hooked as I am ;) That just leaves me with one more thing to say: enjoy ;) show less

This has got to be one of my favorite books of all time. It's the novel that introduced me to Jeaniene Frost's writing, and I am so glad that I picked it up from the library that day a few years ago. Cat and Bones are two of my favorite literary characters, and Frost's writing is hilarious. She has a fantastic sense of humor apparently, and it transfers into both Cat and Bones. Bones is the funniest of the two with his obscene humor. My favorite quote from this book is: "Love to do it in a truck."

As the first book in the series, Halfway to the Grave explains the world that Cat, our heroine and narrator, lives in. However, the explanation of the world does not slow the pacing down. There is plenty of action going on as Cat learns about show more her world and shares the information with us. Her first lesson is that things are not as clear cut as they seem. This book seems to be saying that you can't generalize people and judge entire groups of people. I think that's a wonderful message, and I support it wholeheartedly.

Cat, half vampire and half human, is a snarky, kick-ass character who refuses to get pushed around. She has an attitude problem and is stubborn as hell. That's the best part about her in my opinion. I hate female characters who just lay down and die *coughBellaSwancough* without their men. She doesn't even want to like Bones, and at first she doesn't. She actually tries to kill him when they first meet. Thanks to her upbringing, she is very prejudice against vampires, and she kills them indiscriminately. Bones makes it one of his missions to show her the error of her ways.

Bones is the kind of hero that you can't help but love. He's a 200+ year old vampire, and he can kick some major ass. He's a vampire assassin. Yes, you read right, he's a vampire who kills other vampires. Why, you ask? Well, you'll just have to read and find out. He is an extremely complex character with a terrific sense of humor. He's brave and loyal, and even though he's a killer, he has morals. I know, that sounds strange, but it's true. He looks out for Cat and protects her at all costs, and he trains her to be a better fighter on her own. Instead of expecting her to depend on him and wanting to be the knight in shining armor, he instead makes sure she can take care of herself. Not too bad for a 200 year old, eh? Very progressive.

The world that Frost builds is believable, even though vampires, ghosts, and other supernatural nasties exist. For everything that may have the chance of seeming unbelievable, she explains perfectly. Frost obviously put a ton of work into her world building and mythology.

The pacing of the story is spot on and it's an extremely quick read. We start with Cat carting a dead body in her truck and getting pulled over by the police. The suspense builds from there, and you will not be able to put this book down.

Jeaniene Frost has built a believable and fascinating world complete with interesting and complex characters. Throw in action and romance, and you have a winning combination. The Night Huntress Series is a series that you don't want to miss. show less

I have to ask myself why I waited so long to read this book. I was a fan of Cat and Bones before even picking up this book. I am a huge fan of short stories and short story anthologies. For the last few years, I have been running into Cat and Bones (separately and together) in various short story collections. Even without reading a novel from which they came, I fell totally in love with these characters. I finally decided that I should pick up one of the novels and read it since I enjoy them so much. I am pleased that I did.

Cat is a fantastic character! Cat is an incredibly strong female protagonist who can kick vampire ass like nobody’s business! It helps that she is part vampire herself. I found this to be a very interesting show more characteristic of Cat’s, which made for an equally interesting plot point. I’ve encounter vampire hybrid-type characters before, but none that were half vampires. For Cat, she’s inherited the “good” parts of being a vampire: heightened senses, increased speed, less susceptibility to injury. Blood drinking isn’t required for Cat. She didn’t inherit that but of nastiness from her father.

Cat as a person is equally interesting. To repay the vampire world for her vampire father raping her human mother, she hunts and kills vampires all by herself. She does this to gain a measure of revenge for her mother, but also to prove to her mother that she is not a monster like her father. What Cat’s mother thinks of her is extremely important to Cat. Any child of rape would have issues in this arena. That her mother’s rapist was a bona fide monster just pushes Cat to try to atone for the wrong done her mother and to ensure that her mother never views her as a monster. This made Cat incredibly human to me. She is desperate to obtain her mother’s approval and love, even if that means she risks her own light on a nightly basis.

And then there’s Bones. I puffy heart adore Bones. And what isn’t to be adored? He’s ancient, he has a sexy accent, he has a punk rock look, and he is totally bad ass. Baddies of the world beware if you cross paths with Bones because he will smite you in a way that will fill me with glee. He’s just too delicious for words.

The pairing of these two characters is truly epic. Especially since they hate each other when they first meet. There’s lots of sexual tension, great action scenes, and fabulous bonding that occurs between these two characters.

The plot packs so much action into a relatively small novel! In the hands of a lesser author, this could be a bad thing, but not here. Frost fills each page with plot-furthering action, character-building action, and tops the whole thing off with vampirey goodness. The plot moved so quickly that I had trouble putting this book down! I was mesmerized by the characters and the plot.

My only real complaint was that the ending was less than satisfying. My opinion of the ending changed a bit once I read the second novel, but my initial reaction was that it was far-fetched, even for an urban fantasy world, and just not the ending I was hoping for.

I really enjoyed this novel! I am already reading additional books in this series and I would definitely recommend this book to loves of urban fantasy and speculative fiction! show less

I think this is a perfectly fine paranormal vampire-centered romance. It has an interesting plot, characters who clearly need to develop over time and do, and a high amount of kicking ass.

I can't decide if my somewhat meh attitude towards it is because I've outgrown this type of book, or because I prefer werewolves, or if I just didn't love it. There's a lot of violence and generally terrible behavior towards women. There's an over-the-top romance. There's a certain amount of slut shaming. Neither character is particularly likeable, but they do grow on you over time. So is it first in a series blues, or something else? Don't know, nor sure if I want to find out.

Worst piece of drivel since Twilight. The narrator and main character is supposed to be both a bad girl who curses and a loner doesn't care what anyone thinks (and kills vampires, because #yesallvampires), and a good girl little white girl who doesn't sleep around. She's half vampire, half human, because her vampire father, who was newly-turned and therefore still had functioning pipes, raped her mother. Her mother is a two-dimensional paragon of a non-functioning rape victim who never recovers, hates the vampiric part of her daughter, and encourages her daughter to go out to clubs by herself, dangle herself as bait for horny, rapey vampires, and then kill them.

All this, while maintaining that she's not a slut. (The word is thrown show more around like confetti, and implies as much judgement as possible each time it is.)

There are only a few female characters, and none by the narrator are portrayed in a good light. There's the narrator's mother, her judgey grandmother, a girl who pretends to be the narrator's friend before trying to sell her into "white slavery" to the bad vampires, and a drop-dead gorgeous vampire turncoat (pun intended) who wears no underwear. The last, of course, inspires the narrator to ridiculous heights of petty jealousy.

Finally, the romantic lead employs textbook manipulation tactics on the narrator, both in order to get her into bed with him and while they're there. Neither the narrator nor the author seem aware of how creepy his behavior is.

Overall, I cannot believe I spent three full dollars on this. What a waste. show less

The first half of the book was like fanfic based on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Not just because of the British Blond Vampire, but because the author recycles tropes common in Buffy/Spike fan fiction. Things like the heroine being heavily prejudiced and judgemental when it comes to vampires until the hero shows her how wrong she is. Or that she has lost her virginity to a jerk who dumped her right after the bad sex. Or that the supposedly kick-ass heroine needs to be saved by the hero time after time. In fact, the first half of the book is all about how awesome the hero is in all ways possible. He's so awesome that even as a vampire he has friends even among the living while the heroine has none. The author glorifies Bones the same way show more many fanfic writers glorify Spike, and Cat is turned into a sidekick, which often happens to Buffy in fanfic, too. The trouble with this approach is that everything interesting about the characters is lost. I like flawed characters, and Bones is way too perfect to fascinate me. Cat, on the other hand, has all the potential to be intriguing: she's only half-human in result of her mother being raped by a vampire. Until she meets Bones the most important relationship in her life is with her mother, and it's very twisted to say the least. Unfortunately the author chooses not to explore that relationship; we don't even get to see them interact until very late in the book.

I read the book halfway and skimmed through the rest. The plot picks up and turns from romance to suspense, but I didn't care enough about the characters to appreciate that. The ending suggests very different kind of surroundings for the next book of the series, but as promising as that is I won't be reading more Night Huntress.

(For clarification: I'm not saying Halfway to the Grave is fan fiction;I have no way of knowing that. To me it simply reads like one.) show less

OK, so I'm rating this after making it through about 5-10%, which is totally unfair, but I'm stopping before it completely saps my will to live. This is not an urban fantasy, it is a paranormal romance. If you like the genre, this may be a good book. I don't, and I never would have tried it had I realized what it was.

I nearly sicked up when I reached the line "his tongue circling my thundering pulse..." and after that point, it moved into an ick-factor BDSM thing. YUCK. Not only is that repulsive to me--I find all "sexy" scenes gag-inducing and this is of a particularly glutinous variety--but it doesn't even make sense. Who the hell is listening to her freaking sexual urges when she's a few heartbeats from death? WTH??? I tend to avoid show more female protagonists because I can't stand romance--not only do I find it sick-inducing, but certain common patterns also make the characters weak and illogical. I know I haven't made it through enough of the book for my rating to be fair, but I have already endured past my limits for an entire book.

The final straw? The author apparently thought a "generic" British accent was sexy, but didn't bother to even do the tiniest amount of research into, yaknow, how any particular real British accent goes. Her (mysterious, brooding, smouldering...gack) "hero" uses every "chirpy Cockney phrase" that dumb Americans think Brits still use, and his phrasing is an insane mixture of Mancunian, Cockney, and RE. (Blimey, guv'nor, you mean the chaps don't talk like that? Sod off!) I was listening to it on audio, and the narrator is even worse.

This book has given me a deathwish. I'm stopping while I still have even the remnants of respect for female authors and the will to live. show less