Kita is adjusting to her new liquid diet–an adjustment she rather resents. Not that everything was chocolate and sunshine before (though both were possible before the sexy but infuriating Nathanial sank his fangs in her business). Kita’s ability to shape shift into a kitten when her peers shifted into lions and tigers complicated her life, to say the least, but getting stuck in one form–that of a human shaped tick, a.k.a. a vampire–sucks, literally. Her adjustment period is violently interrupted when she discovers a headless corpse during a party for a visiting vampire council. But, the headless dancer won’t be the only corpse she encounters.
Kita’s involvement draws the attention of the Collector, an ancient vampire with an inclination to acquire two things: power and oddities. As a pureblood shifter turned vampire, Kita ranks high on the collectability list–not a safe place for anyone who values her freedom, and Kita is not the only one on the list. But with the body count rising, there is more at stake than freedom. A killer is slithering through the underbelly of Haven’s vampire community, and with the supernaturals dealing in unnamed favors, it’s a bad time to be a kitten who can’t slip her skin

Twice Dead by Kalayna Price (Haven #2)
Urban Fantasy
February 12, 2010
Paperback, 256 Pages
Bell Bridge Books

Favorite Quote: “Are you really you?”

Why I read: It was offered for review, and I really enjoyed the first in the series, Once Bitten.

Kita is a very new vampire, but she is not new to the paranormal world. She has been able to shift into a calico cat her entire life, that is until Nathaniel bit her a few weeks ago and now she is stuck in human form as a vampire. Nathaniel has become her friend, if not maybe more, as is discovered in this book. Kita is not one to always follow the rules and she thinks drinking from humans is pretty gross, however her animal diet is just not cutting it.

The collector is in town, a very old and powerful vampire who enjoys collecting odd things. One of her vampires in her collection, part of a triplet of albino sisters, turns up decapitated at a function that all vampires in Haven were in attendance for. Unfortunately for Kita, she found the headless vampire so she is the lucky one to be questioned by the Collector herself. Nathaniel is powerless and the vampire king of the city,Tatius takes advantage of the meeting, by making Kita his special companion. Kita is enraged she has to play puppet to Tatius and the collector, but if she wants to get Nathaniel and herself out alive, she sucks up her usual sarcasm and independence, and lets herself be used.

Things become even more complicated when more decapitated bodies start showing up. On top of that, she gets involved with a mage, and now owes him a new body. While she is up over her head in vampires, mages and shifters, she is also battling the pull and confusion her heart has every time she looks at Nathaniel.

Twice Dead is the second book in Kalayna Price’s Haven series and I think better than the first book, Once Bitten. This series is told in Kita’s point of view, a heroine who is very sarcastic, stubborn and while relies on her friends for help, she often has her own ideas on how things should get done. Nathaniel turned her into a vampire in the first book. He is not only her master, but someone she definitely trusts in the weird world she lives in. She has grown up a shifter, and now that she is a vampire, she is having a hard time dealing with vampire politics, feeding, and the new set of “friends” she is forced to hang out with.

Her relationship with Nathaniel can only be described as frustrating. There is so many “brushing of the lips” moments, as I call them in this book. In the first book, Kita and Nathaniel are really only getting to know each other, but now there are so many times where Nathaniel makes a little bit of a move and Kita pushes him away and feels awkward. If you like romantic tension, Kalayna Price definitely delivers it in this book. Nathaniel is a great character, not overly tall and strong, but oh so powerful in that quiet kind of way. He would never force himself or do something to Kita that she absolutely doesn’t want – and when we get the glimpses into his head – when Kita has to drink from him, his feelings for her are a bit heartbreaking.

I sometimes think Kita is too stubborn and set in her ways, but that also makes for a heroine who I am growing to like. This book had a great mystery aspect, and Kalayna Price has a great world set-up. I love that Kita is so set in the shifter world, and now this new vampire world has knocked her off her rocker.

Kita, in her previous cat form, had a unique problem, in that if she scratches someone with her claws that person becomes “tagged.” Meaning when the gates to Firth (her hometown) open, all those that she has tagged, will shift. She is terrified that using her fangs on someone could also provoke this tag, and so she just can’t choose any human to drink from, which puts her in quite a predicament in this book.

I think readers would definitely benefit from reading Once Bitten first to get all of Kita’s history and Twice Dead is a solid sequel into this Haven world.

Rating: 4/5

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