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Night Life (The Nocturne City Novels Book 1) Kindle Edition
Welcome to Nocturne City, where werewolves, black magicians, and witches prowl the streets at night . . .
Among them is Luna Wilder, a tough-as-nails police officer whose job is to keep the peace. As an Insoli werewolf, Luna travels without a pack and must rely on instinct alone. And she’s just been assigned to find the ruthless killer behind a string of ritualistic murders—a killer with ties to an escaped demon found only in legend . . . until now.
But when she investigates prime suspect Dmitri Sandovsky, she can’t resist his wolfish charms. Pack leader of a dangerous clan of Redbacks, Dmitri sends her animal instincts into overdrive and threatens her fiercely-guarded independence. But Luna and Dmitri will need to rely on each other as they’re plunged into an ancient demon underworld and pitted against an expert black magician with the power to enslave them for eternity . . .
“I loved the mystery and the smart, gutsy heroine.” —Karen Chance, New York Times–bestselling author
“Don’t go to bed with this book—it will keep you up all night. It’s that good.” —Lilith Saintcrow, New York Times–bestselling author
“A tense, gritty urban fantasy that grips the audience from the onset.” —The Mystery Gazette
“Luna is tough, smart, and fierce, hiding a conflicted and insecure nature behind her drive for justice and independence, without falling into cliché. It’s also just a lot of fun to read.” —Kat Richardson, national bestselling author
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherSt. Martin's Paperbacks
- Publication dateMarch 4, 2008
- File size3542 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“I loved the mystery and the smart, gutsy heroine.”—Karen Chance, New York Times bestselling author of Claimed by Shadow
“Don’t go to bed with this book—it will keep you up all night. It’s that good.”—Lilith Saintcrow, national bestselling author of Working for the Devil
“Luna is tough, smart, and fierce, hiding a conflicted and insecure nature behind her drive for justice and independence, without falling into cliché. It's also just a lot of fun to read.” --Kat Richardson
“Fast-paced, sexy and witty with many more interesting characters than I have time to mention. I'm looking forward to reading more stories in the exciting Nocturne City series.” --Fresh Fiction
“Wow, I am still thinking about this book. The last time I reacted to a book this way, it was the first Mercy Thompson book by Patricia Briggs. If you are looking for a book that seamlessly blends a police procedural with a paranormal, go out and get this book” --Night Owl Reviews
“A tense, gritty urban fantasy that grips the audience from the onset.” --The Mystery Gazette
“Night Life dives right into the action, and carried me along for the ride…If the following books are written with the same care and interest as Night Life, they will be a welcome addition to this fantasy genre.” --Arm Chair Interviews
From the Back Cover
The first book a thrilling, addictive new series by a talented new voice in dark fantasy. Welcome to Nocturne City, where werewolves, black magicians, and witches prowl the streets at night…
Among them is Luna Wilder, a tough-as-nails police officer whose job is to keep the peace. As an Insoli werewolf, Luna travels without a pack and must rely on instinct alone. And she's just been assigned to find the ruthless killer behind a string of ritualistic murders―a killer with ties to an escaped demon found only in legend…until now.
But when she investigates prime suspect Dmitri Sandovsky, she can't resist his wolfish charms. Pack leader of a dangerous clan of Redbacks, Dimitri sends her animal instincts into overdrive and threatens her fiercely-guarded independence. But Luna and Dimiri will need to rely on each other as they're plunged into an ancient demon underworld and pitted against an expert black magician with the power to enslave them for eternity…
"I loved the mystery and the smart, gutsy heroine."―Karen Chance, New York Times bestselling author of Claimed by Shadow
"Don't go to bed with this book―it will keep you up all night. It's that good."―Lilith Saintcrow, national bestselling author of Working for the Devil
"Dark and cutting edge" ―Romantic Times
About the Author
Caitlin Kittredge is the author of the Nocturne City and Black London series, as well as several short stories. She started writing novels at age 13, and after a few years writing screenplays, comic books and fan-fiction, she wrote Night Life, her debut novel. She is the proud owner of an English degree, two cats, a morbid imagination, a taste for black clothing, punk rock, and comic books. She's lucky enough to write full time and watches far too many trashy horror movies. She lives in Olympia, Washington.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Night Life
By Kittredge, CaitlinSt. Martin's Paperbacks
Copyright © 2008 Kittredge, CaitlinAll right reserved.
ISBN: 9780312948290
Chapter 1
I smelled the girl’s blood and saw her body in a pool of neon light. Signs from a bar facing the alley painted the scene dreamlike, the pavement slick and bottomless and the body’s skin pink and hard.
I could smell her blood because I’m a werewolf.
I had gotten the call because she was dead.
A uniform stopped me with an upraised hand. “Ma’am?”
I drew my jacket aside and showed him the Nocturne City Police Department detective badge clipped to my waist. He squinted at it in the ineffectual light and then nodded. “Sorry, Detective . . . Wilder. Go ahead.”
He even lifted the tape for me. I rewarded him with a smile. “Call me Luna, Officer . . . ?”
“Thorpe, ma’am.” He smiled back, tired blue eyes lighting up. I tend to have that effect on men, even when it’s 3 am and I’m wearing raggedy blue jeans and a T-shirt stained with fingerprinting ink. Not my off-duty attire to be sure, but you try cleaning blood out of a silk halter.
Thorpe called after me, “Hope you didn’t eat dinner. She’s juicy!”
Fantastic.
I walked into the red light from the beer signs, moving between CSU techs and a photographer snapping a digital Nikon. I stopped, the pointy toe of one boot just shy of the body, and looked down at the girl. Her throat was opened in a wide gash, obscured by dried blood. What hadn’t been left inside her—and that wasn’t much—was coating the blacktop, giving oily life to the ground below her. Her left index finger was severed neatly at the knuckle, a raw red-white disk with the blood coagulated.
Someone spoke from below my line of vision. “Another night, another dead girl. Nice to have a routine, isn’t it?”
Bart Kronen, one of the city’s three medical examiners, crouched next to the body, his bald head as red as everything else. I mimicked his posture and bent over the girl’s corpse.
“Nice wouldn’t be my word for this.” Closer, the blood wasn’t the only smell rolling off the girl. A sharp, musky odor lay under it, and that only meant one thing. I slid a glance to Bart to see if he’d figured it out yet, but he was busy with a thermometer and a stopwatch.
“Killer took time to get a souvenir, so make sure you print her skin before the autopsy. Any idea what made that gash in her throat?” Other than the obvious, of course—the musky scent was the panic of a trapped were, panicked because she had wandered down the wrong street and been jumped by a rival pack.
Kronen chuckled, plump cheeks crinkling. “If this happened before the Hex Riots I’d say you’ve got an outlaw were that needs to be put down, but as it is . . .” He shrugged and began packing away small evidence bags filled with cotton swabs taken from the body. He didn’t pick up my instinctive flinch at the phrase put down.
Weres don’t kill people, and never did, except the few who can’t take the phase and go insane. Were attacks were the fuse that lit the bomb of the Hex Riots over Nocturne City in the 1960s. If you got the bite, you pretty much resigned yourself to living with the constant, twitchy fear that someone would discover your secret and take matters into their own hands. Witches and weres don’t enjoy many civil rights in this day and age. On paper, sure, but when a self-righteous plain human with an aluminum bat is after you, it’s another story.
“Detective.”
I put my attention back on Dr. Kronen. “Hmm?” Great, could I manage to seem like more of an airhead? Maybe if I showed up for work tomorrow in a pink sweater set.
Kronen gestured to the dead girl’s hands. “You may want to take a look. She’s got some nasty defensive wounds.”
I slipped on the proffered glove and took her right hand in mine. Her fingers dangled limply, flesh stripped off the tips, nails torn and broken. Good girl. You fought like hell. You scratched him and kicked him, and made it hard for him to hide what happened.
“I’m also guessing we’ll find evidence of sexual assault.”
“Why do you say that, Doc?”
He rolled his eyes at me and stood up, brushing nonexistent dirt from his khakis. “Cause of death appears to be peri- and postmortem mutilation, and coupled with the ritual of severing the left digit, I’m guessing this is a sex crime.”
“Isn’t mutilation usually a secondary trait in sex crimes?”
Kronen nodded. “Usually, but I can’t find another obvious cause. I’ll know more when I can screen her blood for drugs and cut her open to have a peek at her internals. Your skin may lie but your guts never do.”
“Kronen, your reverence for victims never fails to amaze me.”
“In this line of work, Detective, if we didn’t laugh we’d all be prey to the wolves of insanity before the night was out.”
Wolves again. What was it with this guy? Well, as long as he was harping on it I might as well put my talents to good use and see if I could find anything he’d missed.
I took a second look at the girl, inhaling deeply as I let my eyes focus in on her skin, her hair, the creases and crevices where trace evidence could hide. The telltale sting told me that my eyes were starting to turn from their normal gray to deep were gold, and I blinked fast to clear them.
Grease, urine, blood, garbage, and the smell of wet brick from the recent rain all mingled. It wasn’t what I’d ever describe as pleasant, but there was nothing out of the ordinary, either.
The girl herself looked about twenty, with porcelain skin and black hair, a lighter color showing at the roots. Leather skirt, black platform sandals, and a shocking lime-green halter top made out of stretchy material that showcased her chest. No bag, wallet, hidden money roll, or anything else that would help me ID her. And it wasn’t exactly like I could go knocking on her pack’s door for information. An Insoli like me would get a boot in the ass at best, a torn throat to match the dead girl’s at worst.
I walked with Kronen back to the ME’s van. “So, any theories?” he asked me, tossing his gear into the back.
“Based on the neighborhood and the outfit . . . pro. John gone bad. Always tragic, but it happens a lot around here.” Kronen was a good medical examiner and a decent guy, but he shared the human attitude that Were=Bad & Scary & Okay to Hurt. Best to feed him the party line for anonymous dead hookers.
Kronen got into the driver’s seat and shut the door. “Prostitute murder in a downtown alley? How rare. Shocking, in fact.”
“Absolutely shocking,” I agreed, glad that he let it go at sarcasm.
“I’ll page you when the autopsy is scheduled.”
“Thanks. Night.”
“Morning,” he corrected me. And it was, nearly four thirty.
I walked back through the tape and sat in my 1969 Ford Fairlane. Black, shiny, fast, and a hell of a lot better than an unmarked vehicle from the motor pool.
I was a liar. Even as I voiced my theory to Kronen, I knew it was a bad excuse. The torn throat, the fierce defensive wounds, and the missing finger joint all spoke to something far more violent than a business transaction gone sour or a were pack warning a pro off their turf. Lots of packs did street-level dealing and sent their mates out to work the streets, but run across one of those puritanical pack leaders and you were in deep crap. Usually the offending were got away with some nasty bruises and a humiliation bite. Killing just made it bad for all of us.
It could have been a human who killed her, a savage one, but I dismissed that as quickly as it popped into my head. Even without phasing, a were could fight off a human three times their size. We’re strong. Not Spider-Man strong, but we manage.
Attempts to rationalize failed, which meant I was right. She had been killed for a reason. A heightened five senses comes standard with being a were, but I firmly believe it gives you heightened instincts, too. Now I would use them to find out why the girl in the alley was dead.
I looked at the dashboard clock as I pulled away from the scene and turned onto Magnolia Boulevard, once the heart of downtown Nocturne City. If it was a heart now, it was one in dire need of a quadruple bypass and a pacemaker. Boarded-up storefronts glared at me like empty eye sockets, illuminated by broken streetlamps and holding enough shadows to hide a multitude of sins.
The clock read 4:42 am. With no means to ID the girl with until she was fingerprinted and x-rayed at the morgue, I had nothing to do for the rest of my shift except go back to the Twenty-fourth Precinct, file my report, and see if any progress had been made on my seven other open cases. That, I doubted. Working the midnight-to-eight shift in homicide does not lead to a high clearance rate, or a lack of bags under my eyes. Some nights I swore I should invest in the company that made my concealer and retire.
Magnolia intersected Highland and I made the right turn, crossing over into the old Victorian district. Highland Park was one of the few neighborhoods where the residents had been able to stop the city from widening the street and chopping down the hundred-year-old oak trees. It also housed the Twenty-fourth, tucked neatly into a skinny brick two-story that had once been a firehouse, back when fire trucks were horse-drawn and the Hex Riots weren’t even a puff of smoke on the horizon.
The grazing lot for horses had been transformed into a parking lot for cops, and I pulled my Fairlane into the only free space—if the tiny margin between two patrol cars deserved the title. As a detective, I had an assigned spot, but someone was already in it. The Fairlane scraped against concrete, and I winced. That didn’t sound like it could be repaired with a fine brush and a dab of Black Magick nail polish.
I got out and looked at the license plate of the car that had taken my hard-earned spot. The small rising-moon crest told me city vehicle, a black Lexus with tinted windows and no other identifying marks. What it was doing at the Twenty-fourth, in my parking space, was a mystery I wasn’t up to solving at the moment.
I satisfied my frustration with a kick to the Lexus’s bumper, and went into the precinct.
At some point in history, the department had decided that fluorescent lights were not only cheap but also flattering to the complexion, and installed them on practically every inch of ceiling. Other than that small addition, the fire brigade had their way. There was still a brass fireman’s pole in the corner of the squad room. Sometimes, at Christmas, we wrapped tinsel around it.
My single desk, tucked into a corner, held just enough space for my computer, a hanging file, and a picture of me, my cousin Sunny, and our grandmother from when Sunny and I were kids. Sunny and Grandma Rhoda were smiling. I was not.
I went for coffee before I settled in to type up the report on the dead girl. She’d be Jane Doe number three this year among my cases.
The squad room was deserted, but the desk clerk waved at me as I walked by.
“Long night, Wilder?”
“The longest, Rick.”
He clucked in sympathy.
“Heard you caught a mutilation homicide down on Magnolia.”
I’ve given up trying to figure out how the police gossip network disperses information. It could give you a headache.
“That’s right” is all I said.
“So, how’s Sunny doing?” he asked me, smiling shyly. Rick has been in love with my cousin ever since she moved here. Whether he’s figured out that she’s a witch or not, I don’t know.
“She’s fine. Teaching meditation over at Cedar Hill Community College. How’s your little one?” Rick’s wife had left him three years ago, leaving him saddled with a five-year-old son and a job that kept him working nights. As far as I could tell, though, he did okay. He was attractive, in that quiet dark-haired way, and stable as a cement pylon. He would be good for Sunny. But he was also a plain human, and I wasn’t going to encourage them.
“Great. He’s growing like a—”
A bang from the frosted-glass door down the hall opening interrupted us. Wilbur Roenberg, captain in charge of the Twenty-fourth, stepped out. Seeing him working at this very early hour made my gut clench. Roenberg and I didn’t get along even when I’d had a full night of sleep and wasn’t on the tail end of a bad shift.
“We’ll talk, Wilbur,” said a shortish man in a dark suit, with hair and eyes to match. He shut the captain’s door and took clipped steps down the hallway toward Rick and me. He carried a black briefcase, and his shoes were highly polished. I realized the dark suit was a tuxedo. He wore a red silk tie, the only hint of color on his monochrome frame.
Roenberg wiped his face with the back of his hand before disappearing down the hall toward the men’s room.
“You have a nice night, sir!” Rick called as the visitor passed. The guy turned and gave Rick an evil eye. I heard Rick gulp. Tuxedo kept staring, his hand on the door to the outside. His posture had the reptile quality of someone who knew how to fight, and probably fought dirty.
“Shouldn’t you be doing your job instead of flirting?” he finally asked, pure dark eyes flicking to me.
It was my turn to provide a hostile stare. Tuxedo didn’t flinch, but his full lips curled up slightly.
“Is there anything else I can help you with, sir?” I asked, adjusting my loose tee so that my badge and my service weapon showed clearly.
After a long two ticks of the clock, he looked away. Point, Luna.
“The name is Lockhart. And I doubt very much that you can, Officer,” he said, before turning on his heel and striding out like he had a badger nipping at his ass.
“What a butthead,” muttered Rick, punching a few keys on his computer.
I walked over to the door and watched Tuxedo leave. I wasn’t surprised when I saw the black Lexus screech out of my space and speed away down Highland. A city bigwig named Lockhart. I’d remember the name. See if he got a warm welcome next time he needed someone to fix a parking ticket.
Walking back to my desk, I almost ran head-on into Captain Roenberg. He jumped aside, face flushed and stale coffee on his breath. “So sorry, Detective Wilder.”
“That’s fine, sir,” I told him. He wasn’t sorry. Roenberg was a throwback, and it was apparent every time he deigned to make eye contact that he was really seeing me in pumps and a frilly little apron. Fair’s fair. Every time I was unfortunate enough to see him, I wanted to plant a solid left in his smug little mouth.
“Yes . . . ,” he said absently, hurrying past me toward his office.
“Don’t get any cooties on you,” I muttered, glad I was going the other way. At least not all cops in the Twenty-fourth felt the same way as Roenberg. Most of them could deal with my being female. It was the were part I kept under my hat. Not that I wore a lot of hats. They make my head look like a dinosaur egg.
I decided to type up Jane Doe’s report and clock out early. Those other seven cases weren’t getting any colder.
Name? the computer prompted me. I typed Jane Doe. Age? Unknown. I filled in all the boxes for physical description and forwarded the file to Missing Persons for a cross-check. In three weeks, if I was lucky, they’d tell me they found nothing.
Cause of Death?
My fingers stopped. I saw the girl lying on the wet pavement, dried blood on her tattered throat. Wet blood under her, matting the long black hair. The tight clothes that left no room for any ID. Torn, bloody hands reaching out to fend off . . . what?
I blinked. The night had been too long and too full of death. Under the COD field I typed exsanguination and checked the box to indicate that the autopsy was still pending. The printer spit out a hard copy of the report, and I attached the appropriate forms and tucked it into my open-case file, which was really just a tattered accordion folder sitting on top of my desk.
Jane Doe: filed and processed and tucked away where she needed to be.
I got up, stretched, and slid into my scuffed motorcycle jacket. The telltale point in my lower back twinged. Definitely time to go home. I had made it to the squad room door when I heard a voice bellow, “And where does that sweet ass think it’s going?”
Turning brought me face-to-leering-face with David Bryson, a fellow detective—if fellow could be classified as the occasional lewd comment and a burning desire on my part to kick him. The only thing keeping me from phasing out on him was the hope that he’d be fired for sexual harassment and I’d get to watch.
“Hey, Wilder,” he panted. A younger Hispanic man was attached to Bryson’s arm via handcuffs. The kid had gang tats and a bloody gash on the side of his head. “Be a good girl and help me get this piece of crap to interrogation,” Bryson said, detaching himself from the kid and recuffing him.
“What the hell happened to his head?” The gangbanger smelled like sweat, cheap weed, and fear. Bryson gave off adrenaline and coppery, impotent rage.
He grinned at me. “Vato resisted. I showed him he couldn’t resist the hood of my car.”
I sucked in a breath. “That’s great, Bryson. Really great. What’s on the menu for the rest of the night? Toilet bowls and telephone books?”
“Aw, who’s he gonna tell? Dumbshit doesn’t even speak English.” He shoved the banger into a chair by his desk. “Am I right, Pedro?”
“Su madre aspira martillos en infierno,” Pedro muttered. I turned away quickly so Bryson wouldn’t catch my snort and grin. Red-faced, he didn’t even notice me.
Instead, he grabbed Pedro by the neck and slammed him face-first into the brick wall of the squad room.
Pedro moaned once before he slid down and curled into a ball on the linoleum at our feet. “You think that’s some funny shit, don’t you?” Bryson shouted, drawing back his foot for a kick.
I stepped over Pedro and put out my hand, palm up. “Enough, Bryson.”
He glared at me, foot still poised, big shoulders hunched. I’d spent enough time in my kickboxing dojo to handle an opponent bigger than myself, but Bryson was not only big, but also armed and a cop with training of his own. This standoff definitely called for sugar rather than round kicks.
“He had it coming,” Bryson snarled at me when he realized I wasn’t going to move.
“Leave it alone, or I’ll help this poor kid file a complaint against you right now,” I told Bryson. “And you can bet I’ll be calling Lieutenant McAllister at home to make sure he sees it.”
After another long second, Bryson stepped back and fixed his tie. Pedro got up and ran like hell.
Bryson heaved a dramatic sigh. “Shit, Wilder. You can be a class-A bitch sometimes.” His eyes traveled down to my chest, lower, and back up. “If you weren’t so cute I might pop you one.” He reached around and patted me on the bottom. “Thank that sweet ass.”
Bryson squealed as I grabbed his index finger and bent it backward, applying pressure on the knuckle and creating a vise that could snap bone with a few milligrams more pressure.
“David, I know that the time for this conversation is long overdue, and that’s my fault, because up until now I couldn’t believe that you could really be such a gigantic dickhead. But apparently you can, so listen up.”
“That’s my trigger finger you got!” he yelped.
“Then you shouldn’t have put it on my ass.” I pinched harder. “I couldn’t care less what you think of me. But for the record, I think you are a violent, incompetent psychopath who has no business being a police officer.” Somewhere between the dead girl and the Lockhart jerk from the city, my annoyance had boiled over into rage, and I was feeling it deep down in my gut. Bryson just happened to be the closest target. Not that he didn’t deserve it.
“Now that we understand each other, David . . .” I squeezed and relished the cry of real pain I elicited. “Take your opinion of me and stick it up your ass. If there’s room next to your head, of course.” I twisted his hand to the snapping point, realizing how easy it would be to hurt him. How easy it would be to lean in and feel his hot breath as I tore his throat. My hand clamped down and the joint let out a popping sound.
I let go, jumping a step back.
Bryson stared at me with wide eyes, holding his hand. Then he turned without a word and practically ran out of the squad room. The big baby.
As soon as he was gone, I bolted for my car.
Shit. It had never hit me so early before a full moon, and so hard. A full seven days still. I stroked the chain under my shirt and felt the cool kiss of the silver star pendant against my skin. The rage I’d felt in the squad room still demanded satisfaction, a hunt brought to a bloody close.
Weres are all instinct and nerves, loosely held together by the thin veil of humanity that covers us when the moon is new. When we get angry, control is a memory. You can hurt people, and probably will at least once. Wearing silver when you’re human is a good deterrent, or a little wolfsbane next to the skin if you don’t mind smelling like an old lady’s medicine cabinet. But when were rage really grips you, nothing on this earth can stop it.
I breathed in, out, and turned on the car, forcing my hands to stop shaking. Bryson was an idiot and a terrible cop, but what I had done was unforgivable. I had lost it. Something had awakened the were and I didn’t know what. That scared the hell out of me.
I kept my pentacle outside my shirt, touching it every few seconds with my free hand. It did little to calm me as I drove home while the sun came up. Copyright © 2008 by Caitlin Kittredge. All rights reserved.
Continues...
Excerpted from Night Life by Kittredge, Caitlin Copyright © 2008 by Kittredge, Caitlin. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- ASIN : B0011UGMBE
- Publisher : St. Martin's Paperbacks (March 4, 2008)
- Publication date : March 4, 2008
- Language : English
- File size : 3542 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 351 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #792,191 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #3,403 in Contemporary Fantasy (Kindle Store)
- #4,154 in Witch & Wizard Mysteries
- #6,790 in Dark Fantasy Horror
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Caitlin Kittredge lives in Washington and is the proud owner of an English degree, two cats, a morbid imagination, a taste for black clothing, punk rock, and comic books. Visit her at www.caitlinkittredge.com
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book suspenseful and exciting. They describe it as a good read with some humor. The writing quality is described as descriptive and tight. However, some customers feel the plots are uneven and the character development is disappointing.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers enjoy the book's suspenseful and exciting story. They find it dark, funny, spooky, and engaging. The book holds their interest throughout with its intriguing plot and supernatural elements like werewolves and demons.
"...crackles--he is extremely appealing--and the book is dark and funny, spooky and exciting, sexy and scary all at once...." Read more
"...Other than that, I really liked the book. It grabed my interest and held it the entire time. I am looking forward to the next book." Read more
"...this review will be very helpful, but if you like action, an okay mystery/murder, and werewolves you could be entertained for a few hours." Read more
"Suspenseful..." Read more
Customers find the book readable and engaging. They say it's a good start to the series.
"This is a decent book but I'm wondering if it was one of Kittredge's early works or even first work...." Read more
"Good beginning to this series" Read more
"...Overall an Ok read and I will checkout the follow on." Read more
"...Other than that, I really liked the book. It grabed my interest and held it the entire time. I am looking forward to the next book." Read more
Customers enjoy the humor and different take on werewolves.
"...the hero crackles--he is extremely appealing--and the book is dark and funny, spooky and exciting, sexy and scary all at once...." Read more
"...Some humor helps as does the slightly different take on were wolves. Overall an Ok read and I will checkout the follow on." Read more
"...It was a good read, funny and dark, but it just didn't convince me......" Read more
Customers enjoy the writing quality. They find it descriptive and paint a vivid picture. While the building is mediocre, the action is tightly written.
"...The world building is so-so, but the action is tightly written and that's enough to make up for its shortcomings elsewhere...." Read more
"...The main plot is something of a clieche but the author pulls that off well...." Read more
"...Very decent descriptive. Painted a great picture." Read more
Customers dislike the character development. They say the plots are uneven and the character development is overall disappointing.
"...It's a bit predictable and the main character's development confused me...." Read more
"...Her character tends towards nasty (well se is a were wolf) and isn't really sympathetic. Especially her relation with Dmitri...." Read more
"...-building was one of the best I've read but it felt like the characters weren't 'alive'...." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2008Wow! After reading Kittredge's short story in the "My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon" book, I was really looking forward to this novel, and it did not disappoint. In a genre where so many first-person heroines are similar, Kittredge's Luna Wilder really stands out, as much for her weaknesses and insecurities as for her strengths.
I don't want to give away any spoilers, but suffice it to say the chemistry between Luna and the hero crackles--he is extremely appealing--and the book is dark and funny, spooky and exciting, sexy and scary all at once. I started reading at 8 pm and didn't put it down until I'd finished, well past my bedtime.
Caitlin Kittredge is a major new voice in urban fantasy. Don't miss her debut novel.
(By the way, my husband, whose account this is, insists I make clear it isn't him talking about how sexy the hero is, it's me. Just so you know.)
- Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2008I'd prefer to give 3 1/2 stars, but I'm feeling generous and rounding up since it's the first novel in a series, and often, authors take a little bit to get into the groove of their main protagonist. I'm sincerely hoping this is the case.
Luna is a cop fighting her werewolf nature, and while she's labeled tough-as-nails, that description tends to mean aggressive, angry, and flippant in this story. Not that that's a bad thing, but in this case, it made it difficult to garner a lot of sympathy for her. It took me awhile to slog through the first third of the story because of it. Once the mystery and action took off, I did much better and is likely the reason I enjoyed the story as much as I did.
I'll also freely admit that I really liked Dmitri much more than Luna. The author has created a bad boy hero, who - oh my god - does bad things! He is not a nice man. He's the leader of his pack of biker werewolves, and he's both dealt drugs and pimped. He's snide and smirky, and by all accounts should annoy me, but I found his troubles, his pain, far more interesting and engaging than Luna's.
The world building is so-so, but the action is tightly written and that's enough to make up for its shortcomings elsewhere. I'm definitely picking up the sequel when it comes out in August. I think there's enough promise there - and Dmitri - to keep going with the series.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2014This is a decent book but I'm wondering if it was one of Kittredge's early works or even first work. It's a bit predictable and the main character's development confused me. Her actions were really outrageous and often stupid but the reason for this was not shown clearly enough. I've read some of Kittredge's two other series; one based in London and the other a steampunk YA series. The London series first book was a 4 star the steampunk series a five. So I'm hoping this series gets better. I'll give the follow up books a try.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2015Detective Wilder has her hands full protecting the City of Nocturne. Being a werewolf without a pack makes it that much harder.
- Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2014Good beginning to this series
- Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2009The protagonist is a police detective which leads me to believe that at least one of the featured reviewers never read the book. Her character tends towards nasty (well se is a were wolf) and isn't really sympathetic. Especially her relation with Dmitri.
As for the firing and suspension that may work for a small town department but in a large department personnel and Internal Affairs would be all over it like white on rice. I realize this is a fantasy but if you need reality to intrude it needs to do so in a believable manner. Perocadan (Oxycodone and aspirin) is a powerful analgesic and is used in Guided Anesthesia a big dose and you might not notice your finger getting cut off. It has been replaced for postoperative with formulations using acetaminophen or the very similar Hydrocodone with acetaminophen (Vikaden) as they don't contribute to bleeding as does aspirin. Diazepam is Valium which is an anticonvulsant, hypnotic, sedative, skeletal muscle relaxant occasionally used for small animal sezures as well as pre operative tension reduction. Both are tightly controled Valium less than Peroset et al. Neither would be something I would consider if I were going to incapacitate someone prior to tourture. Mabye Ketamine (loosely controlled large animal tranqulizer) AKA K-hole, Special K, which induces halicinations and sometimes the illusion of pain.
The main plot is something of a clieche but the author pulls that off well. The sub plots are uneven though and character development is overall a little disappointing. Some humor helps as does the slightly different take on were wolves.
Overall an Ok read and I will checkout the follow on.
- Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2008So, I really liked this book. I read it in about a day. For me it was a page turner. The only thing I didnt like was the way they described Dimitri. I imagined him to be dirty and at one time he was a pimp! I am suppose to despise him and then want her to be with him. Sorry, I just cant seem to warm up to a pimp - regardless of whether he is reformed.
Other than that, I really liked the book. It grabed my interest and held it the entire time. I am looking forward to the next book.
Top reviews from other countries
- Cathie werewolf j.f.☆Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 24, 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars waffling werewolf believer utterly n beyond. ..'
wowee after picking up book second skin from the library donations table. my newest obsession started when i only got online ere n sussed out how to get book 1,2,4,5.coz ive worn out pages in 3 .. sorry for goin on n on but ive taken to looking for full moon coz she has convinced me to get on the search for weres .. yeah btw they are real person wolf n i have some sleep deprived looking at roads n telling my grandaugher "Chibz" that truthfully only out to find fairies. .I'm totally known they're real hard to find but il keep eyes open for em all. .no doubt il be txtn back so see my name skip or delete or block coz ino how much i can get on the last nerve waffling on n on some more 😨
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mel7885Reviewed in France on October 11, 2010
1.0 out of 5 stars un essai manqué
NIGHT LIFE est le premier d'une série surfant sur la vague SF post-twilight, nous suivons donc les aventures de la détective de police Luna Wilder, une jeune femme qui cache sa condition de loup-garou à ces supérieurs dans un monde peuplé de créature magique.
Pour résumer l'histoire, une série de meurtre sanglant commis sur des stripteaseuses amène Luna Wilder,Loup garou solitaire à rencontrer Dmitri Sandovsky, bad boy par excellence, compagnon d'une des victimes, Alpha de sa meute et suspect principal. Bien entendu, Luna ne peut s'empêcher de le trouver à son goût et aide Dmitri. Plongé dans le monde des sorcières, puis dans les bas fond de la ville, le duo tente de suivre la trace d'un suspect. S'en suit une enquête ponctuée de cadavres, finalement résolu dans les 5 dernières pages du roman après un twist final peu crédible et pour la lectrice que je suis la sensation amère d'avoir perdu mon temps.
L'univers de Luna très sombre aurait pu être un atout, mais il n'est que très peu exploité. Peut être est-ce alors l'omniprésence de Luna personnage plat caractérisé par sa colère qui cache tout l'univers du livre. on ne voit plus qu'elle. De plus, on sait d'elle que ce qui est matraqué sans cesse durant l'histoire : son passé fait de rejet car elle est la seule de sa famille à ne pas avoir le don de la magie (oui on avait compris que c'était le mouton noir de la famille, pas la peine de nous le rappeler dès que l'on voit sa cousine qui vit avec elle), son attaque par son petit amis et finalement son attirance pour Dmitri.
On a tendance du coup a ne retenir que les éléments de second plan pour ce roman, l'histoire un peu caricaturale de la femme forte qui rencontre le bad-boy-pas-si-mauvais-que-ça qui va la sauver d'elle-même et accessoirement du tueur. bref ne parlons même pas de la scène de sex, pas vraiment sexy et qui intervient quelques jours après la mort de la compagne de Sandovsky.
L'histoire avait un fort potentiel mais les indices, anecdotes, réponses que j'attendais ne viennent jamais ou très tard dans le roman, la résolution est artificielle et la conclusion loin d'être satisfaisante. A vouloir sans doute retenir des éléments de réponse pour la suite de la série, l'auteur n'a fait que créer de la confusion voire parfois un sentiment de travail bâclé.
Dommage ...
- MiaReviewed in Germany on June 30, 2008
4.0 out of 5 stars Not really new, but quite ok - 3,5 points rounded up to 4
Reminds me a bit too much of Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan series and is not as good as the latter - but it's good written, full of suspense, and the love story is not dominating the whole story so it was a nice easy reading.
I, too, wonder about the names - a mostly grumpy were cop called Luna, a little-miss-sunshine-witch named Sunflower (Sunny), the setting is in Nocturne City, and so on, that are too many stereotypes for my taste. But if you connive at this, you can quite enjoy the story.
- ANTHONY HAZZLEDINEReviewed in the United Kingdom on June 1, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
gift
- DebBReviewed in the United Kingdom on January 30, 2009
3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad - it certainly holds the interest and reads well...
I came to this by way of an Amazon recommendation, and am glad I did.
True there are times when you want to slap her for being so stooopid, and the hero changes rather fast from drunken nasty to romantic hero. I liked the work politics, the uncertainty over who was the baddie, and the twist towards the end over whether the apparent really bad baddie was so very bad after all.
The were society needs more explaining (reviews suggest this comes in the next book in the series) and why oh why was Luna, the lowest of the low in were society, able to pull an Alpha stunt on a threatening male??? It happens, nobody comments on it, she doesn't wonder why - it's not referred to again, which is annoying.
One small point, the author refers to the characters were sides as separate entities - "the were let go and raked her nails... I slammed the porcelain hard." and at first I wondered who this other character was and where they'd come from. Once I'd got that sorted was okay! Also on one or two occasions it wasn't immediately clear whether the word w-e-r-e meant were(wolf) or (we) were (happy) - maybe I read too fast, but I certainly had to pause and consider on at least one occasion.
The action is fast, there's one well written and quite hot sex scene, Luna's family are set up in an interestingly vague way and there is clearly more to be revealed about them, and Luna, and werewolf society, and Dmitri... I will buy the next one.