Midnight Marked (Chicagoland Vampires, #12)

by Chloe Neill

As the Chicagoland Vampires series continues, Merit and Ethan find themselves in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse, where winning may require the ultimate sacrifice...
 
A vampire’s grudges don’t stay dead long...
 
Merit is one of Chicago's most skilled vampire warriors; these days, she doesn't scare easily. But she and Master vampire Ethan have made a new and powerful enemy, and he won't give up until he owns the Windy City.
 
With his last plan thwarted, he's more determined than ever to watch Cadogan burn. Ethan has put the House's vampires on high alert, but their enemy will stop at nothing, including pitting supernatural against supernatural...
 
In this deadly game of cat-and-mouse, the stakes are life or death—and winning might mean sacrificing everything...

• ISBN10: 0451472330
• ISBN13: 9780451472335
• Publish Date: 1 March 2016
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Berkley Publishing Corporation,U.S.
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 384
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780451472335

Reviews

[Linda]

Another well-written, fast-paced, action-filled story!

[Chelsea]

A solid lead up to the final book! I can't say I was surprised with that plot twist near the end but it was a good read regardless.

[wyvernfriend]

Merit almost gets to enjoy a baseball game when magic and murder gets in the way.

[Berls]

3.5 stars - better than the last one and I really liked the magical bad guy. I liked Ethan and Merit as a couple a little more again, but the proposal and baby talk continues to be an annoyance for me. There was one scene that I felt would have been a pretty epic fight scene at the movies - would love to see it on screen. And I'm happy with the direction we're going... I think the series is getting much closer to its end. Narration was a solid B as usual. Oh and I like the developments with Merits dad, that's definitely positive. The recaps weren't as bad this time either.

[MurderByDeath]

Ah, things are starting to wrap up.  Happily Ever at-least-for-now's are in sight and I for one am going to miss this series after the next and last book.   

Merit, Ethan and the rest of the good guys are all gearing up to fight the newest big bad that threatens Chicago (Chicago has been beleaguered by Big Bads - and all in 1 year!!), but they're also busy fighting amongst themselves as we see the inevitable result of putting too many alpha males in close proximity.   

I'm being a bit flippant, but really, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, in spite of finding a couple of plot points predictable (the sorcerer, the importance of the symbols' locations) and the use of a deus ex machina towards the end.  I've been in this series from the beginning because of the characters and dialogue; it straddles the genre extremes of darkness and vapid frivolity, falling somewhere firmly in the middle, making for a slightly thrilling, yet fun read.  

This makes the weaker plotting a non-issue for me because really, it's all about Ethan, Merit, Mallory (more Mallory in this one - yay!) and Catcher and I got just what I was looking for.   

I'm looking forward to book 13 to see how it all ends.

[Cocktails and Books]

4.5 Cocktails

I adore this series and I'm sad that we're at the second to last book. Each book, since the book where Ethan came back, has gotten better and better. MIDNIGHT MARKED is no exception. These characters continue to grow, bond with one another. That was very evident in this story as uber Alpha Ethan came out and we saw a Merit who was unsure how to deal with his unreasonably emotional response to their latest threat.

As with many books in this series, good supernaturals prevail over those that are out to cause trouble. The same happened here. But I loved how members of Cadogen house are standing up to their supernatural counterparts and calling BS. Ethan with Gabriel. Merit with the entire RG. Catcher somewhat with the Order. You could see things are going to be changing in supernatural Chicago. I