Vampires Not Invited (Night Tracker #3) by Cheyenne McCray
Urban Fantasy
November 30, 2010
Paperback, 352 Pages
St. Martin’s

Reviewed by Tori

Favorite Quote: ”One By One The Penguins Are Stealing My Sanity”

Nyx is back in action when a mischievous gang of sprites is wreaking havoc on the city of Manhattan. When she overhears a conversation between a pair of vampires at the Pit she realizes that there is a lot more at stake then cleaning up Lady Liberty’s toenails.

Seems master vamp Volod is tired of being ignored and he has a plan that will put him and his followers at the top of the food chain once and for all….unless Nyx puts her stake in it and him.

In the 3rd Night Tracker book, Vampires Not Invited, Nyx and her trackers find out that vampires want to take over the world and they have the means to do so.

On the paranormal status scale, vampires are pretty much at the bottom. Considered tainted by their once being human, they have no rights where the paranormal world is concerned. Nyx learns through an unlikely source that vampires have stolen all the classified documents that list each and every paranormals weaknesses and plan to use it to force their demands on the Paranormal council. Nyx tries to go it alone and ends up in a pretty bad way, requiring the help of everyone to get her out.

I enjoyed parts of this latest installment. The plot is fabulous- thick with action, suspense, and humor. I love how you never know till the very end if Nyx will make it out of this battle alive or not. McCray builds her paranormal world with a steady hand; expanding it’s borders with every new installment. While the arc expands and draws upon previous books for enhancement, each one can be read alone if you choose.

I enjoyed the smaller story lines that enhanced the arc. We see Nye’s prejudice towards certain other paranorms and her overcoming it along with some emotional (though not much physical) bonding in her relationship with her human lover, Adam.

The main characters are well defined and personable. I adored our villains. They are evil and with out conscious. They took the storyline to a new level. Olivia has Nyx’s back with much snark and her ever present t shirts. The other trackers are very active and visible through out the story.

I am still having a problem with Nyx though. She is still one dimensional to me. Her conversations come off stilted and ring false. Every single sentence that comes out of her mouth or runs thru her head mention she’s a princess, she’s rich, a designer name, that she’s feminine and /or a kick ass warrior. Oh yea, and the Victoria’s Secret panties. You will read about her cat and the panties at least a dozen times. Mentioning each one of those once in the book would be ok. But each one is mentioned at least a dozen times. It got to the point where I wanted to put the book down multiple times because it became so irritating. But the plot kept me hooked and reading. What really confuses me is that no other character seems to have this superficial dialog problem.

The ending was fast moving rollercoaster of thrills as we are kept on the edge waiting for the ax to fall. I love how unpredictable it all was. I also love the fact that Ms McCray leaves us wondering on some things that happened in order to build on the next installment-Zombies Sold Separately.

Rating: C

Recent Reviews:
A Great Read – 4.5/5
Goodreads

This Series Includes
Demons Not Included
No Werewolves Allowed
Vampires Not Invited
Zombies Sold Separately – June 2011

Author’s Website.