Black Dawn: The Morganville Vampires - Rachel Caine

Black Dawn: The Morganville Vampires – Rachel Caine


Pages: 507
Publisher: Allison and Busby
Release Date: 1st May 2012  
Edition: UK paperback


Other Titles in this Series: Glass Houses, The Dead Girls’ Dance, Midnight Alley, Feast of Fools, Lord of Misrule, Carpe Corpus, Fade Out, Kiss of Death, Ghost Town, Bite Club, Last Breath


When a tide of ferocious draug, the vampire’s deadliest enemy, floods Morganville, its eclectic mix of residents must fight to save their town from devastation.


Chaos has taken over the quiet college town of Morganville as the threat of the draug rapidly spreads with the help of the city’s water system. Whilst most of the locals have already fled, student Claire Danvers and her friends Shane, Eve and Michael choose to stay and fight. 


Things may take a turn for the worse when vampire Amelie, the town’s founder, is infected by the master draug’s bite. Unless Claire and her friends can find an antidote to save Amelie and overcome the draug, Morganville’s future looks bleak...


I almost feel like I can’t really review this series anymore. There have been twelve books and I’ve adored each one of them for the same reasons: the pace, the characters, the relationships, the action and the head-spinning plot twists.


Black Dawn picks up exactly where Last Breath left off, with Morganville in chaos and the tensions between the vampires and humans relaxed in the face of a common enemy: the draug. This brings around some unusual alliances: Shane and Myrnin working together, Eve and Naomi making a deal and the strangest yet; Monica helping Claire, Eve and Michael all which make a massive change in the dynamics of a town that I’ve grown to know and love. And with the ending of Black Dawn, I imagine that Bitter Blood may bring us a Morganville that’s almost unrecognizable. 


Like in Last Breath, Black Dawn continues to explore different viewpoints and occasionally change tense. I thought that would be a little disruptive, but it isn’t – it works. The voices are clearly distinguishable and I found it incredibly easy to tell who was speaking even if I hadn’t checked who the chapter was narrated by. That’s how brilliantly Rachel Caine’s characters are drawn and that’s how well she’s let her readers get to know them over the Morganville Vampires series. But they continue to grow. A clearer idea of the tense relationship that Amelie and Oliver have is exposed, Eve and Michael finally realise the potential danger of their relationship, a glimpse of Myrnin’s true vampire nature is unveiled and the true terror of a Morganville without Amelie is hinted at. Seriously, the idea of Oliver in charge freaked me out quite a bit.


Something that struck me the most about Black Dawn was something that I haven’t really noticed in the series before, but has been there from the very beginning. Claire is a fiercely strong protagonist. But not in a strong-like-a-boy way, she’s strong, but she’s most definitely a girl. Claire is brave, loyal, ridiculously intelligent and cares for everybody that has a single redeeming quality. She’s not the strongest, the fastest or the most skilled with a weapon (all good things to be in Morganville), but that doesn’t matter because her qualities overpower them. I think this is a lot rarer in YA than it should be and I’m full of endless praise for Rachel Caine for creating Claire in such a way. Eve is the same – fierce and strong, but still vulnerable. 


I’m even more in love with this series than I was twelve books ago and I’m already eagerly awaiting Bitter Blood. More of the Glass House gang, please!  


Sophie