This book did a far better job of pacing the story and editing out these nonessential social calls and filler activities, but make no mistake - they're still there! Of course, any Friday night trip to Mallory's required ice cream from Wrigley's, that was a given! My day was free and I figured I'd drop around Mallory's home to see how she was doing. It occasionally suffers, as its predecessors do, of an annoyingly journal-like quality that may aggravate some readers. This story, more so than the others, is packed with action, mystery and intrigue. Luckily I do enjoy her narration and respect her as a character. On the positive side, Hard Bitten is an easy to read and mostly enjoyable book providing that you enjoy the narration of the main character and protagonist, Merit. Thus I figured a nicely rounded three star rating accurately reflects my ambivalence toward this novel. It's going to be really difficult for me to give this book a rating because equally divergent parts of me both enjoyed and disliked aspects of this book. Merit soon finds herself in the heady, dark heart of Chicago's supernatural society-a world full of vampires who seem to be ready to fulfill the protesting human's worst fears, and a place where she'll learn that you can't be a vampire without getting a little blood on your hands. So she secretly calls in a favor from someone who's tall, dark, and part of an underground vamp group that may have some deep intel on the attack. Merit needs to get to the bottom of this crime, but it doesn't help that she can't tell who's on her side. His message is simple: get your House in order. But then the mayor of Chicago calls Merit and Ethan to a clandestine meeting and tells them about a violent vamp attack that has left three women missing. Inside its doors, things between Merit and her Master, green-eyed heartbreaker Ethan Sullivan, are tense. Ever since shapeshifters announced their presence to the world, humans have been rallying against supernaturals-and they're camping outside of Cadogan House with protest signs that could turn to pitchforks at any moment. Times are hard for newly minted vampire Merit.

Hard Bitten by Chloe Neill