Glass Houses: Morganville Vampires, Book 1 | ||||||||
Rachel Caine | ||||||||
Narrated by Cynthia Holloway | ||||||||
Tantor Audio, 8.5 hours | ||||||||
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A review by Gil T. Wilson
The story in this first book of the series introduces listeners to the town of Morganville, Texas, home of Texas
Prairie University. The town is populated by some strange people and even stranger yet, it is run by vampires. Each
person has a sort of insurance policy that protects them from the vampires, but when children reach the age of 18,
they must find some vampire family to "insure" them or risk becoming food for the vamps.
Overall, narrator Cynthia Holloway does a very nice job of delivering the story as told from the viewpoint of the
new college student, Claire Danvers. However, there are a couple of pronunciation issues that should have been
cleared up before production. One that stands out is the word settee, which Holloway pronounces as "setty" instead
of set-tee. There were some other words that grated on me, but this one was repeated several times in the book
and just felt like nails on a chalkboard. If it weren't for the intriguing story, I would have been turned off a
bit from the book. But aside from some mispronunciations, Holloway does a great job of helping listeners distinguish
who is talking and thinking with slight voice variations. Her tone emotes both the danger and, at times, the humor
found in this town full of vampires.
Claire Danvers is a 16-year-old who, due to her intelligence, has graduated high school early and decided to
attend TPU before heading to a major university. Problems begin when that intelligence puts her on the wrong side
of Monica Morell, the most popular girl in school. When Claire corrects Monica and makes her look dumb in front
of friends, Claire becomes marked for violence. Monica and her "girls" beat up Claire and steal her clothes
from her dorm room. Claire decides that she must move off campus in order to be safe and discovers that
residents of The Glass House are looking for a fourth roommate. After meeting with Shane and Eve she must meet
with Michael, the owner of the house who happens to only make appearances after sunset.
Shane makes a deal with the vampires to keep Claire from further attacks by Monica, but when Claire learns the
deal could put Shane's life in jeopardy, she decides she must make the vampires a better offer by finding a lost
article for which they have been searching for ages. With exciting vampire battles juxtaposed against the more
traditional trials of a new college student, Glass Houses offers fans of other young adult vampire series a new
twist on the very old vampire story.
Gil T. has spent a quarter of a century working in radio and has lots of spare time on his hands and reading or listening to books takes up all that time. Check out his blog to find out what he's up to at any given moment. |
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