Fade Out by Rachel Caine

Title: Fade Out
Author: Rachel Caine
Publisher: Allison & Busby
ISBN: 978-0-7490-0749-2
Pages: 345
Series: The Morganville Vampires #7
Type: Young Adult Paranormal
Source: Purchased
Goodreads

Now Bishop has been removed from Morganville, Claire and her friends are enjoying a modicum of peace. But when Eve's role in the town play brings Kim into their world Claire begins to feel left out. Kim has a history with Shane and as Eve's new best friend, Claire is left to deal with a homicidal computer by herself. When Kim mysteriously disappears, it soon becomes apparent that Kim was playing with forces in Morganville best left alone.

This is the seventh book in the Morganville Vampires series (after Glass Houses, The Dead Girls' Dance, Midnight Alley, Feast of Fools, Lord of Misrule and Carpe Corpus) and was a little disappointing after the previous installment. While in some ways it was nice to take a break from the frenetic pace of the last book, this takes half the book to even get started. The slower pace does allow a more normal day-to-day view of life in Morganville and there are as many twists and turns as usual.

Claire acts more immature in this book than any other. She spends most of the book whining about how Shane had a relationship with Kim and how everyone seems to like Kim more than her. By the time Kim goes missing (in chapter 9) I was already bored of her drama, especially as Ada's attempts to kill Claire have been getting more and more worrysome. Also Kim's activities in Morganville were really interesting and could have been far better developed had she disappeared earlier. Michael is also put in the position of choosing between being on the human side or the vampire side, leaving his relationship with Eve more strained than ever.

Sadly the vampire/human relations post-Bishop are not fully explored, and with the new rights awarded to Morganville's human residents at the end of the last book I was really looking forward to this. Some plot lines are continued, one of which is Amelie's grief over the loss of Sam and it is cleverly written echoing throughout her whole existence.

All in all this was a fun read and I'm looking forward to reading Kiss of Death.

Plot: 8/10
Characters: 8/10
Ending: 9/10
Enjoyment: 9/10
Cover: 8/10

Overall: 42/50