Kitty Goes to War (Kitty Norville, #8)

by Carrie Vaughn

Three soldiers recently returned from the war in Afghanistan are in custody at Ft Carson in Colorado Springs. They're werewolves, suffering from post traumatic stress, which has left them unable to control their shapeshifting, unable to interact with people. Kitty agrees to see them; after her own battles in KITTY'S HOUSE OF HORRORS (Kitty #7), she feels a great deal of sympathy for them. The soldiers were part of a unit fighting Taliban insurgents in the remote mountains of Afghanistan. Their captain, the original werewolf, transformed the others; their new-found strengths including the ability to survive untold violence while infiltrating remote enemy positions, made them the perfect soldiers for this mission. But it was the captain who kept the group together and kept them sane; when a particularly potent mortar attack killed the captain, the remaining lycanthrope soldiers grew more and more wild, until the final three survivors were captured and delivered to Dr Shumacher at the Center for the Study of Paranatural Biology for treatment.
Kitty tries to bring the men into her own pack, to socialise them back into some kind of normal existence, but the group's sergeant has other plans: he's intent on driving out Kitty and Ben and becoming the leader of a new squad of killers.

• ISBN10: 0575098651
• ISBN13: 9780575098657
• Publish Date: 13 January 2011 (first published 29 June 2010)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 24 January 2013
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Gollancz
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 352
• Language: English

Reviews

[Berls]

This review appeared first at Fantasy is More Fun.

After the last book, Kitty Goes to War probably didn't have a chance of measuring up. But it came close, it just didn't quite blow me away like the last one.

For one - - spoiler if you haven't read the previous books! - - I thought it was going to be awesome have Cormick back. It so wasn't :( he's just not the same - in part because he just got out of prison and that's really changed him. But more so, I missed Kitty's interaction with him. I love her with Ben now and I don't want that to change, but I realize now that what I loved about Cormick was the sexual tension between him and Kitty. Now she's so worried about him that she's playing mother hen to him instead. It's a big change in their relationship dynamic and I need to get used to it. There are some interesting developments where he's concerned, so things could get seriously interesting with him in the future.

Besides Cormick, though, I think Kitty Goes to War was another hit for me. I just love Kitty's eternal optimism and determination to help people. This time, she's trying to help some war vets who were turned into werewolves by another soldier - and it went really well until.... Until it didn't. Now they're home and a mess. I loved Kitty's respect for what they'd been through as soldiers, not just werewolves. I loved that she refuses to give up on them, even when they would give up on themselves. And thanks to Kitty's House of Horrors, I was constantly on the edge of my seat because who knew where Carrie Vaughn would take it. And she didn't pull punches again, which was great. Everything isn't always a happy ending!

But if you know Kitty, she never seems to have just one big problem - in Kitty Goes to War she's also looking into a series of concerns & incidents at Speedy Marts. It's something that has cropped up a few times over the series and it was cool to see a little tidbit take center stage in what becomes a pretty serious way.

And I know you've got to be tired of me saying it - I just don't know how else to say that Marguerite Gavin nails the narration. She's been on my list of top narrators for a while and with Kitty Norville she's better than anywhere else I've seen her. The voices are so spot on and I would probably throw a fit if you told me I had to read it or even worse listen with a different narrator! That would NOT be cool!

So yeah, another great addition to the Kitty Norville series and I'm picking up the next one immediately!!



I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.