cover image Kitty Saves the World

Kitty Saves the World

Carrie Vaughn. Tor, $7.99 mass market (336p) ISBN 978-0-7653-6870-6

In this climactic 14th and final entry (after Low Midnight) in the saga of Kitty Norville, a werewolf and radio talk show host, Vaughn brings her characters together for a showdown that’s solid but not spectacular. Kitty’s archenemy, the vampire Roman, is ready to trigger his apocalyptic plan, and only Kitty and her ragtag band of allies can hope to thwart him. But as the two sides move and countermove, it becomes clear that unexpected players are influencing the conflict, changing the rules in strange new ways. Vaughn pulls together a number of ongoing story threads to wrap things up in a fairly neat package; while it’s not the end of Kitty’s universe, there is a satisfying sense of finality. The stakes are high, the action is fierce, and the peculiar core concept of a werewolf with a talk show miraculously continues to work. Longtime readers will enjoy the sense of payoff—especially when certain characters meet much-deserved fates and others get their happy-for-nows—and they’ll be eager to see where Vaughn goes next. Agent: Ashley Grayson, Ashley Grayson Literary. (Aug.)