Halfway to the Grave
Night Huntress, Book #1
By Jeaniene Frost
ISBN# 9780061245084
Author’s Website: http://jeanienefrost.com/
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi
Spoilers Ahead!
Halfway to the Grave is the first novel of Jeaniene Frost’s Night Huntress series. In it, we are introduced to the lead character, Catherine Crawfield, who goes by the name, Cat. Her mother was raped by a vampire which resulted in her being conceived. Her mom has watched her closely her whole life waiting for her evil side to come out and all their neighbors have branded her a whore because she was born out of wedlock. Now she spends her nights cruising bars and hunting vampires to avenge her mom and to hopefully kill her father one day.
One night she bites off more than she can chew when she targets a big handsome vampire, Bones. He throws her completely off her routine and she ends up unconscious and wakes up chained to the wall in his cave. He tries to scare out of her who she works for and he doesn’t believe her story of being half vampire until he sees her eyes glow green like his own do.
He ends up making a deal with her that he will help her kill vampires as long as he gets to pick the targets, in return he will help her hunt down her father so she can kill him as well. Bones trains her to be the ultimate vampire fighting machine and irresistible bait. She lures the vampires out and he takes over when she gets in over her head.
Cat of course was planning all along to stick a stake through his heart at the first opportunity she got, but never expected to fall in love with him. What would her mom say?
The duo are delving deep into a vampire ring that is abducting young girls, abusing them, and selling them to the highest bidder until they are eventually killed. They ultimately find out that the ring has a high-profile human contact helping make the girls’ police reports disappear.
Bones never wanted Cat involved with this case because of how dangerous it is, but once she found out about it she couldn’t turn away. And now they are being hunted by a bunch of fanged killers who will stop at nothing to end them both.
I was amazed at how much I loved this book. The characters were great and the storyline kept me interested and I never wanted to put the book down. The story was written well and was original and enthralling. Now that’s it over, I’m a little sad not knowing when I’ll get a chance to read more of the series. I already want to give this one a re-read!!
Bones was a great character. A strong almost indestructible vampire that could kill in an instant, but was one of the most passionate and caring men I’ve ever seen in a book when it came to his “kitten”. He definitely had me saying that I want to bone Bones! Hold on a second I have to fan myself off…he’s so hot and scrumptious!! I absolutely loved the way he was with Cat always telling her just how good she is even though she’s had the opposite drilled into her for her entire life.
“Do you think I’m pretty?” I heard myself ask.
Something I couldn’t name flashed across his face.
“No. I don’t think you’re pretty. I think you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”“All I’m saying is that sooner or later, you’ll have to come to terms with yourself. You can’t wish away the vampire in you, and you shouldn’t keep atoning for it. You should figure out who you are and what you need, and then don’t apologize for it. Not to me, to your mum, or to anyone.”
He was so patient and kind with her, and I loved seeing his protective side, especially with Danny, but I was kind of wishing she would have let him hurt him. I found both Bones and Cat to be hilarious when they had their jealous streaks brought to light.
“He muttered something foul and then climbed the stairs, rapping twice on Timmie’s door.
“Right, then, mate, terribly sorry for my unspeakable rudeness, and I do beg your pardon,”
he said with admirable humbleness when Timmie cracked it open. Only I could pick up the
slight edge to his voice as he went on. “I can only say that it was caused by my natural
affront to the notion of her as my sister. Since I’ll be shagging her tonight, you can
imagine how I’d be distressed at the thought of rogering my sibling.”
“You schmuck!” I burst as Timmie’s jaw dropped. “The only thing you’ll be shagging
tonight is yourself!”
“You wanted sincerity,” he countered. “Well, luv, I was sincere.”
There were two things in this book that I didn’t quite get though. The first was how Cat started to refuse her share of the money Bones earned on their kills because she didn’t want to be a kept woman, but then let him furnish her whole apartment. I just didn’t see what the difference was and found that she was more kept that way then if she had taken the money she earned. The second thing was her mom *rolling eyes*. She was raped by a vampire, and then these vampires came and killed her parents and took her hostage. While they are holding her they are telling her all these things about her daughter having sex with Bones, which of course would be her biggest fear. And yes they were telling the truth, but how was she to know that? Why did she believe them and start raging at her daughter as soon as she saw her once they were both safe instead of at least asking her if it was true first? It made me really not like her mom at all.
I also didn’t like Cat sneaking out on Bones even if it was to protect him. I kind of liked the idea of her running off with him, although I would have left her mom right where she was. But of course I have all the faith in the world that Bones will hunt Cat down and find her in the next book with a heated reunion.
“If you run from me, I will chase you, and I’ll find you….”
As you can tell by the length of this review that this book was a hit with me and I can’t wait for more!!
