Preternatura Book Club: Halfway to the Grave by Jeaniene Frost, Chapters 25-End

Welcome to this week’s “meeting” of the Preternatura Book Club! Today, we finish the first book in Jeaniene Frost’s Night Huntress series, Halfway to the Grave. After today, the book club will go on hiatus until early December, when we’ll tackle Moon Called, the first book in Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series. This is one of my favorite series but I haven’t re-read it in a long time, so it will be fun to visit it again. I hope you’ll join in! I’ll post the starting date well ahead of time.

HALFWAY TO THE GRAVE, CHAPTERS 25-27

We left Cat in a heap of trouble last week. After assaulting two cops at her grandparents’ murder scene and being shot several times, she ended up finding out the governor was the high-ranking ,her. We don’t know where Bones is, but he’s sure to turn up soon.

Chapter 25 picks up with Cat in the hospital, on the eleventh floor on a cleared-out wing, befitting her dangerous status. She’s a medical miracle already healed, of course. A middle-aged FBI agent and his younger companion come to her room—Donald Williams and Tate Bradley. Don is head of the Paranormal Behavior Division of the FBI, and Tate is Special Forces.

Don wants to talk to Cat about vampires—he has it figured out that Cat is half human and half vampire. She admits nothing, so he tells Tate to shoot her in the head. Cat falls for the ploy, rips the siderail off her hospital bed, breaks Tate’s arm, kneecaps Don, and gets the gun.

His offer is this: He wants her to be a government weapon and kill vampires with their backing. As bait, he holds out her mother.

Sigh. Mom is a piece of work, blaming Cat for the whole debacle and calling her a “whore for the undead.” She lets it slip that they’re looking for Bones, to kill him. Between the threat to Bones and their promise to leave her mother unprotected for Hennessey’s minions to kill her, Cat feels she has no choice but to take Don’s offer—as long as they leave immediately and call off the hunt for Bones. He agrees, as long as she doesn’t continue to see Bones and signs on for thirteen years.

By late afternoon, they’re headed out in a caravan, heading for a heliport and a military flight. Of course, they don’t get far before Bones steps in front of their car and lets it hit him while he fires into the windshield—well, it hits his shield. He rips off the door with a cheerful, “Hallo, Kitten!” He takes a sip of both Don and Tate before tossing them in the grassy shoulder of the highway. Cat’s mom is spouting nonsense till Cat finally punches her in the jaw (thank God—shut the woman up, already!).

Bones causes some impressive vehicular carnage before they drive off in a new Volvo SUV—which was going to be Cat’s Christmas present—to stay with a ghoul named Rodney. Mom has her mouth taped up (good move). Cat drags Mom into the bathroom and tells her to play along, and Mom agrees. She locks Mom in the basement and then goes upstairs to be with Bones.

Bones leaves the next morning, thinking he’s making plans for their departure. Cat cries a while after he leaves, then puts her plan to protect him and her mom in motion. She tracks down Switch’s body and puts Bones’ jacket on him. She shows the body to Don and says it’s Bones—and that they have to leave right away before more vampires come for them.

Eight hours later, Cat is in a military hospital in Houston after officially being killed by the FBI trying to escape. Tate is going to be a member of her team. As Cat goes to sleep a few nights later, she remembers Bones’ earlier words: “If you run from me, I’ll chase you. And I’ll find you.”

ARRGH. Okay, I hadn’t expected it to leave me hanging like that. Resolution, people! But it pretty much assures over the holidays I will inhale the rest of the series before we move on to our new book club read in January.

So, I’m kind of hoping Mom meets someone and moves away. I’m over her already. Will we ever see Timmie again? I’m guessing not. I’ll be anxious to see how Cat reconciles Bones with her new role as a fed—or if she does.