Halfway to the Grave: Night Huntress Book 1

Cat is not your average vampire. In fact, she’s not really a true vampire: she’s part human as well. The product of a male vampire and her human mother, she’s stronger than other humans and can see quite well in the dark. No fangs here though.

Cat’s on a mission to find her father – she’s got a bone to pick with him. More accurately, she’s got a stake to shove in him. Along the way she’s decided to kill as many vampires as possible since, well, she hates vampires. All vampires. Over the years (with practice) she’s gotten pretty good at killing them. So good that she attracts the attention of Bones, another vampire hunter. Although Cat kills any vampire that crosses her path Bones is after a specific list of vampires and thinks the two of them should join forces.

There’s only one problem with this strategy: Bones is a vampire himself.

This book is interesting in that the heroine is only 22 years old and therefore fairly naive about life and love. At first this annoyed me to no end but I eventually accepted the fact that Frost has created a believable female fantasy character. I mean honestly, how many 22 year old girls have enough wisdom to separate love from lust? Not many I’d guess; Jeaniene Frost does a good job in keeping Cat’s character true-to-life.

Now, you’ll discover that the mother figure in the book is quite different from what you’re used to seeing in most urban fantasy books. Cat’s mother, a human, knows that Cat hunts and kills vampires. She doesn’t seem to mind sending her 22-year old out into the world to deal with these deadly creatures. On the contrary, she encourages this behavior and is, quite frankly, somewhat of a fanatic about it. Her hatred of vampires is so strong that she appears not to care that Cat is risking her life every time she hunts them down. It will be interesting to see how Frost expands on the mother-daughter relationship in future books. I’d like to learn more about the mother, her life, and her feelings about her daughter.

And speaking of future books, the storyline provides a great opportunity for the character development and growth of Cat in future installments. I’d like to see the next book focus on a Cat that’s a year or so older and wiser about hunting vampires. There are lots of unanswered questions at the end of this book so I can’t wait to get started on the next book in the series.

This is a funny and entertaining urban fantasy read that kept me interested throughout. I’d place it in the fantasy romance genre myself but there’s enough vampire gore (in a good way) to keep it in the urban fantasy section of most bookstores.

Rumor has it that Brad Pitt read this review and immediately purchased Halfway to the Grave. I mean come on, the guy has 4 children, twins on the way, and a globe-trotting wife that tends to leave him home with the kiddies. He could use some escapism time.