Book Review: Kitty Saves The World by Carrie Vaughn (Kitty Norville #14)

It’s all come down to this, following the discoveries made by Cormac in Low Midnight, Kitty and her allies are ready to strike. But, when their assassination attempt on the evil vampire Dux Bellorum fails, Kitty finds herself running out of time. The elusive vampire lord has begun his apocalyptic end game, and Kitty still doesn’t know where he will strike.

Meanwhile, pressure mounts in Denver as Kitty and her pack begin to experience the true reach of Dux Bellorum’s cult. Outnumbered and outgunned at every turn, the stakes have never been higher for Kitty. She will have to call on allies both old and new in order to save not just her family and friends, but the rest of the world as well.

My Review: 
After the last two padded books which seemed to be delaying the inevitable, finally we get to battle against Roman and his people that we have been waiting for. The Long Game is in play and Kitty and her allies have to stop it and destroy him.

Amelia replies to Roman's online message and with Kitty's agreement, they set up a meeting. Cormac can't go to the meeting as Roman know him so kitty asks Tina, who had just arrived in Denver if she will agree to play Amelia for them. Jessi insists on going with them while Kitty hears that Mercedes is back in the US, which upsets the already skittish Angelo. Without vampire support it is up to Kitty, Cormac and Jessi to protect Tina at the meeting but of course things go rapidly downhill when Roman arrives, leaving them forced to flee and come up with a better plan. It is then that Kitty realises that she can't contact anyone else in her Pack and fears that Roman may have got to them, while Jessi gets word of a fire at New Moon.

Naturally I'm not going to go into details about the plot of the book with this being the last in the series but I can tell you about the characters who are coming for the final battle. Tina has a feeling that she needs to be in Denver and arrives to see Kitty, just in time to reluctantly agree to be 'Amelia' for the meeting. After the first plan goes belly up and they rush back to see what the damage is in Denver and that is where Grant appears to offer his help. Kitty has to try and track down a terrified Angelo who tells her to flee town and save herself and says he has no idea what happened to her Pack. There is also the arrival of a mysterious arrival of a man claiming to be there to offer her a TV contract if she moves to LA or New York, which she instantly finds suspicious. But even Kitty has no idea of who and what he really is or the danger that she is going to be placed in.

My one frustration here is that yet again, Kitty's Pack are sidelined for the action. They are all meant to be capable werewolves yet Kitty has never really trusted them to take part in any of her plans through the series except when she is desperate. It doesn't show a lot of faith in them and it leaves them unprotected. She needs all the help she can get to tackle Roman but instead she goes off with her small posse and leaves them behind again. Kitty treats her Pack more like newborn precious puppies that need to be hidden away and protected rather than used as strong allies, which is a little disappointing when you compare them to the werewolf packs in Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson series or Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld. I feel the Pack have been a bit underused in the series.

I liked the new allies that appear for the big battle and they are so interesting that I'd have liked to have seen more of them in the series. The mixture of old and new allies have to face the odds and fight to stop Roman completing the ritual, using the artifact that Amelia and Cormac recovered. I liked the mixture of brawn and magic used in the battle and overall I'd say this was a good story which brings the series to a satisfying end.

Read September 2018
4 stars.