College can be quite frightening and stressful on its own, but if you're Claire Danvers, it's downright deadly. That's because the college town of Morganville Texas is run by Vampires. This, until recently, wasn't too bad, if you didn't mind donating blood to blood banks to feed the vampires, keeping their secret, and never leaving Morganville. But now the evil vampire Bishop is in charge. Donating blood isn't something the Red Cross may assist you with any longer, and your life is at Bishop's whim, human and vampires alike.

For Claire, things just couldn't get any worse. Her boyfriend Shane is being held captive with a pending execution, her best friend Eve hates her since Claire has been made the evil minion of Bishop, while Eve's boyfriend and vampire Michael is a slave to Bishop as well. The vampires Claire had come to trust and rely on now either were captives of Bishop's or missing. To Claire, there seems to be no way out.

But in Morganville a resistance is rising. One that will once again put Claire in the middle of a life and death game in which fatalities will be a result of for both vampires and humans, and the future of the occupants of Morganville becomes uncertain as well.

Rachel Caine gives us CARPE CORPUS, the sixth book in the Morganville Vampires series, with the same gripping zest in her writing as the previous books. Readers will find themselves moving smoothly from chapter to chapter, not wanting to put the book down for fear of missing what comes next in Morganville. She tackles the first sexual experience of the young heroine Claire with a delicate crafting so that the touching awkwardness is there yet there also the responsibility needed, without preaching to the younger readers. The story ties up neatly in the end with a bit of an unexpected twist, yet it lets the reader know there is still more to watch in Morganville with the next book. I look forward to Fade Out, the next installment of the Morganville Vampires, in November later this year.

Book Summary

In the small college town of Morganville, vampires and humans lived in (relative) peace—until all the rules got rewritten when the evil vampire Bishop arrived, looking for the lost book of vampire secrets. He’s kept a death grip on the town ever since. Now an underground resistance is brewing, and in order to contain it, Bishop must go to even greater lengths. He vows to obliterate the town and all its inhabitants—the living and the undead. Claire Danvers and her friends are the only ones who stand in his way. But even if they defeat Bishop, will the vampires ever be content to go back to the old rules, after having such a taste of power?