Bambi Unbridled: Review: Wild Things by Chloe Neill

Wild Things by Chloe Neill
Series: Chicagoland Vampires #9

My Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Sultry Scale: 2 of 5 flames

Since Merit was turned into a vampire, and the protector of Chicago’s Cadogan House, it’s been a wild ride. She and Master vampire Ethan Sullivan have helped make Cadogan’s vampires the strongest in North America, and forged ties with paranormal folk of all breeds and creeds, living or dead…or both.

But now those alliances are about to be tested. A strange and twisted magic has ripped through the North American Central Pack, and Merit’s closest friends are caught in the crosshairs. Gabriel Keene, the Pack Apex, looks to Merit and Ethan for help. But who—or what—could possibly be powerful enough to out-magic a shifter?

Merit is about to go toe to toe, and cold steel to cold heart, to find out.

Gosh, it's hard to believe that after 9 books, the time in this series has only progressed 10 months. I can't imagine living the lives of these characters with this crazy stuff happening month after month. It's madness!

It seems like in each book of this series, we have a political drama and a supernatural drama. Same thing here. We are still dealing with a crazy mayor who has declared vampires the public enemy, domestic terrorists, or the big bad boogey man. At the same time, there is a new supernatural threat that is causing strife between the vamps, shifters and a caste of supernaturals that no one knew existed. Finally, in this installment, it looks like they get some leverage against the politically ambitious mayor. But while that obstacle may lessening, there is discussion and foreshadowing that the future political strife will be within the vampire community, rather than city of Chicago.

Merit has her same team that we love to help solve the problems of the day, and it seems like she and Mallory are finally getting back on good terms. Grandpa is healing from his injuries in the last book, and Cadogan is dealing with the fallout of killing a member of the council. I like the shifters in this series, and I was happy to see more Gabe and the sexy new shifter, Damien, who potentially is a new team member. We have more discussion about Gabriel's prophecy that Merit may have a child with green eyes like Ethan's. Finally! I have been so curious about this since the early books. And Ethan and Merit continue in their relationship, which gets stronger every book.

All-in-all this was a good, quick read that progresses the story by approx. one month. There was enough recap in this book that I didn't have to go back and read the earlier books (thank goodness - I'm behind in my reading). I like to save up a few of these books at a time to read b/c I am very impatient with the next books in the series being released. So, onward we go to Book 10.

I do have some casting for this series that I will post here since I haven't reviewed the earlier books on the blog (yet).