Morganville Vampire Series - Books 1 - 4

Rachel Caine is better known for her Weather Warden series which can be found in the Sci-Fi & Fantasy section of your local bookstore (which I only discovered AFTER I found this series!). The Morganville Vampire series is a Young Adult series about teen vampires, though it is not your typical Teen Vamp plot. The first book in the series, Glass Houses, introduces the reader to Claire Danvers a 16-year old college Freshman. Claire is one of those advanced, super smart girls who graduated high school early and started College two years younger than every one else. She really wanted to go to MIT or Stanford, but her parents convinced her to stay closer to home and go to the college in Morganville. Having to flee the dorms where the Queen of the Cool Girls, Monica and her friends try to kill her, Claire tries to find a place off campus, out of the dorms. And she does. Sort of.Enter the Glass House. A house owned by Micheal Glass and his roommates Eve and Shane. The house and town hold all sorts of secrets that Claire both accidentally and purposely finds out about and reluctantly becomes very involved.Morganville is full of Vampires. Vampires who pretty much run the town, own businesses, are part of the police force. You're either Protected or free game for the vamps. Claire catches the eye of Amelie, the Founder of Morganville for some reason and in order to save her new friends she accepts the offer of Protection from Amelie and has to do her bidding. This consists mainly of more advanced courses in school (which Claire appreciated since the regular stream curriculum was too easy for her) and some other lessons with a slightly nefarious and unstable old vampire who has to teach her the lost art of alchemy.I picked up the first book both for the idea of the story (private college, town run by vampires) and the cover (I love me some goth/punk stuff!) not to mention by adding it to my Amazon order I got free shipping (*ahem*). I read through book one like it was nothing it was captivating and intriguing. I had only bought the first book just in case I didn't like it. My bad. Each book ends on a pretty big cliff hanger note and you NEED the next book to find out what will happen next. Sure enough once the weekend was over I was right back at that story buying books two and three (The Dead Girls' Dance and Midnight Alley).I found most of the characters very likable, though I was not a huge fan of Shane and his sort of whiny, bratty attitude. Though it did make sense due to his back story. I just found him rather irritating. I know this series would have been devoured by me as a teen. It's not as innocent as the L. J. Smith series Secret Circle or Vampire Diaries which I loved. It does have swearing and sexual overtones, though not to the extent of the Holly Black books (tithe and Valiant) but it has something about it, probably in the friendship and connection between the characters that draws me to it. Claire has no supernatural powers, she's just very smart. It's her brain that helps get them out of (and into!) trouble, not super strength, or magical powers. Just her smarts. It makes a difference when you character is more or less a real person in a story full of vampires and ghosts and whatnots.The story builds up throughout the books so it was no surprise that the fourt book, Feast of Fools had the most constant action of the series. I felt like things were just non-stop and I could feel the anxiety of the race against time that Claire was dealing with as she went through it. Everyone in the town always seemed to dismiss her or ignore her because of her age of 16 (almost seventeen!) though out of everyone, Claire was always the one with the logical plans of action, the clear head and the drive TO act and not just sit back and take what the vampires were dishing out.I have to say that I have really enjoyed the series so far and am looking forward to the release of the 5th book in um, a few months? A month? Amazon is slightly lacking in the release date for this book. :) And I am thrilled that due to this series I discovered the Weather Warden series because in my week off this week I have gone through the first 5 books like they were a drug. Yummy!