Carrie Vaughn – Kitty and the Midnight Hour

Here’s an oldie, but goodie:

The Kitty Norville series by Carrie Vaughn.

This series is fantastic. It’s one of my Top 10 series ever. Urban Fantasy readers tend to be bingers. We’re used to taking the entire first book in the series as an introduction to the main character. In Book 1: Kitty and the Midnight Hour, Kitty is fantastic and loads of fun right from the start. She’s a werewolf in a world where mere mortals are unaware of the supernatural world. Her life with the pack is rough. It was the one down side of the story for me, but things improve drastically on that aspect by the end of book 1, and those events are used to propel the story forward throughout the rest of the series. There’s a ton of character growth early on in the series, which is needed considering her situation.

In this series, Kitty is a radio DJ for the Midnight Hour, where she plays oldies music most of the time. Bored one night, she asks for callers to phone in with thoughts and questions, but what she gets is someone asking theoretical questions of a nature that convinces Kitty she’s talking to a fellow supernatural. Why not? They tend to be creatures of the night, so who else would be up listening to the local radio station at 2am?

The caller is having trouble, so Kitty does her best to provide guidance, only to have a slew of other supernatural creatures calling in for advice on the ethics of their existence and how to handle the difficulties particular to their lives. They start off disguising their questions as theoretical, but pretty soon the cat is out of the bag. The whole world starts listening in to her show, which gains syndication, only to catch the eye…or ear…of a hunter of the supernatural. Kitty has to figure out how to keep her job, avoid the assassin, and navigate her troublesome pack life, which seems to be getting more deeply entangled with the vampire community despite her best efforts. All that is just the introduction to the first book.

This series continues on to worldbuild in big ways. Kitty ends up in a much healthier relationship down the road that gives me good vibes all the way down to my toes. It develops a wide cast of characters, each with their own interesting backstory, and the world at large is intriguing as humanity stumbles its way into one problem after another trying to determine just what to do with the existence of the supernatural. This 16-book series is a phenomenal read that’s been around for over a decade and deserves way more love than it gets. I highly recommend it.