BOOK & BLOG

November 6, 2005

Book of the Week: Kitty and the Midnight Hour by Carrie Vaughn

Carrie Vaughn’s KITTY AND THE MIDNIGHT HOUR should be a great read for anyone who likes my books, or Kim Harrison’s. (By the way, if you want to analyze the evolution of the cover, look first at L.A. Bank’s MINION, then Kim Harrison’s DEAD WITCH WALKING, then KITTY.) For those of you who haven’t heard of the book yet, it’s about a radio talk show host in Denver who suddenly starts airing calls about the supernatural. Since Kitty is a werewolf herself, this step over the line that separates her two realities just seems natural. But to her pack and to the local vampire contingent, Kitty’s admission that their world exists constitutes a big threat.

I blurbed this book (gave it a favorable quote to put on the cover) so it almost seems unfair to review it, but I did give a quick re-read this week. As before, I had a couple of minor problems with the way Vaughn structured the book. For example, we have no idea of how Kitty looks until well into the narrative, and it turned out I’d built up a picture of her that was erroneous. And (necessarily for the book, but sadly for her) Kitty never seems to have much fun. When she tries, it’s always spoiled by pack business or vampire interference.

But the great thing about KITTY is the courage the character finds inside herself, and the interesting way the pack mentality shapes her behavior. Kitty patiently puts up with a lot of behavior that would have had Anita Blake reaching for one of her knives, because Kitty is trying to be a good pack member, and she knows she’s the lowest ranking and newest wolf. She is able to defy some other pack members when the alpha male decides to take away the only thing that Kitty feels she must have, her radio show, which has turned into a minor sensation with its call-ins from Werewolves, vampires, and people who want to be one or the other.

I’m really looking forward to Vaughn’s second KITTY book.

BLOG

It’s been one of those weeks that helps you understand your place in the world. I returned from my mother’s, after accompanying her to the doctor and checking up on her bout of poor health, to find that Alan Ball’s publicist had been quicker than my agent in putting out the news about the TV series. So I was flooded with emails, and flowers, and Godiva chocolate, and email cards. Tons of fun, right? Then, as it turned out, my daughter’s seasonal cough and runny nose turned into pneumonia, and Monday was a long trip to the doctor, lots of prescriptions, and my daughter’s dawning horror when she realized she would not get to practice basketball all week – which meant she wouldn’t be a starter in Monday’s game.

Things only went downhill from there, when she returned to the doctor after three days to find that not only would she not be a starter, she was forbidden to play at all. Any of you who have sports-mad teenagers will realize the full scope of this tragedy – at least, to the teenager. Not only would she not get to play, we wouldn’t even let her go sit out in the damp night air at the Friday night football game, which is the social event of the week. Clearly, we are unreasonable and evil parents, and she should be adopted by kinder, gentler people.

I’m just going to have to live with that.

I had a few placid moments yesterday when I walked down to the mailbox to retrieve our daily batch of catalogues. On the way back, I sat on the bench beside our pond to watch our duck preen himself, and notice the leaves flying in the breeze and the colors in the woods. Our two younger dogs (at least we think they are younger, in Oscar’s case) were nosing around the fallen branches and the reeds. (Our oldest dog is getting too slow and feeble to run around any more, so Oscar and Rockie are making do on their own without Sugar to boss them around.) It was a beautiful ten minutes, and made me aware that I should manage to work in little breaks like that more often. I hope all of you manage ten minutes to yourself, at least, every day; that’s my Wish of the Week.