Review: Friday Night Bites by Chloe Neill

Posted November 16, 2020 by Kate

Review: Friday Night Bites by Chloe NeillCheck out on Goodreads | Buy on Amazon
Genres: Adult, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, Romance
Also by this author: Some Girls Bite (Chicagoland Vampires, #1), Twice Bitten (Chicagoland Vampires, #3), Drink Deep (Chicagoland Vampires, #5)
Series: The Chicagoland Vampires #2
Publisher: Berkley Books
Source: My shelves

Vamps in Chicago!
You’d think headlines like that would have provoked the fine citizens of the Windy City to take up arms against us bloodsucking fiends. Instead, ten months later, we’re enjoying a celebrity status reserved for the Hollywood elite—fending off paparazzi only slightly less dangerous than cross and stake-wielding slayers. Don’t get me wrong, Joe Public isn’t exactly thrilled to be living side-by-side with the undead, but at least they haven’t stormed the castle yet.
But all that will change once they learn about the Raves—mass feeding parties where vampires round up humans like cattle and drink themselves silly. Most civilized vampires frown on this behavior, putting mere mortals at ease with their policy of asking a person’s consent before taking a big gulp of the red stuff. However, that doesn’t make good copy for a first time reporter looking to impress his high society family.
So now my “master,” the centuries old, yet gorgeously well-preserved Ethan Sullivan, wants me to reconnect with my own upper class family and act as liaison between humans and vampires—and keep the more unsavory aspects of our existence out of the media. But someone doesn’t want people and vamps to play nicey-nice—someone with an ancient grudge.

Friday Night Bites is the second book in the Chicagoland Vampires series and did not disappoint! A quick recap from book one (although: I’d definitely check out my review rather than reading this one if you’re unfamiliar with the series): Merit (grad student) is attacked by a vampire. To prevent her from dying, Ethan Sullivan (Master Vampire) turns her immortal to save her life, and she becomes Sentinel of his House (think Warrior/Strategizer/Bodyguard). Merit is super attracted to Ethan Sullivan (her Boss), and he with her. She’s a Super Strong Vampire, and Evil awaits in the shadows! Plus she has a super cool best friend + rag-tag fun group of friends of various supernatural bents’ <3

Oo-rah! Back to book two. In this one, Celina (Public Enemy #1) is back and manipulating the Cadogan House, and has a special grudge against Merit, who is still settling into life as a vampire. and living in the House.

 

What I liked: 

✨ Merit: Intelligent, But Sassy, Superstar.  Our main heroine is hilarious. She’s fierce, she’s practical, but she’s also quite sassy! *Quite* LOL. She overloads with sass and sarcasm. You can always rely on my girl for banter, and a good time.

✨ Merit: Super Relatable. In this one, Merit moves in with the other vampires of Cadogan House, into her Sentinel dorm room and away from the voyeuristic wandering hands of MalloryAndCatcher at her old home. But she’s an introvert, and her position and method of her “turning,” and her relationship with Ethan marks her a stranger and outsider to the rest of the newbie vamps, and she doesn’t really know how to make friends with her housemates. This is something I KEENLY relate to.

✨ She didn’t forget her friends. I love a good rag-tag, fun-loving group of friends in fiction! I’m a character-driven reader, okay? Between Mallory, Catcher, Jeff, Lindsay, the granddad (etc), there’s plenty of laughs and rough-housing going around. I loved that they were still very present, and didn’t get ditched for all her new roommates in the house of vamps.


I grabbed my sword and went for the door. I’d solved one mystery. might as well see what other trouble I could get into.


✨ Delicious Morgan! Her fun-loving, not-quite boyfriend is just great to have around. Even though he’s the new Master of the Navarre House, They were just a joy with the A+ banter! However… friends. Definitely, I think, friends.

✨ We’re meeting shifters!! Like, other than Jeff!! I’m reading this series to diversify my vampire collection (because I don’t read much of it), but we all know my real love lies with shifters ??

✨ That Beauty and the Beast Moment!! We all live for the Beauty and the Beast elements!!!! And I’m talking about the curse-is-broken, man-is-no-longer-beast part, either. I like my characters to be able to turn back and forth into a beast at will just fine, ah-hem. I mean the library unveiling moment!! For an English grad like Merit, it was an important Belle moment, and I had stars in my eyes right with her.

 

What I didn’t love: 

✨ What the hell happened with Mallory??? My favorite part of book one was the awesome friendship between Merit and Mallory! She held Merit up through all of her transitions, never looked at her differently or questioned Merit. She never did anything but make it clear that she was there for Merit, to help in any way necessary. They’re sisters, and I loved their bond. They were fun, but obviously tight. And they broke a bit in this one, and honestly, even as it was happening, I’m still trying to figure out why it was such a huge, devastating, monumental change. Like… people fight? People say things they don’t mean? And all this over a not-boyfriend? Like really? That wasn’t a supernatural disagreement. Human girls do that shit. Idk, but this felt forced and I hated it. We can’t break up the dream team.


You are a Cadogan vampire. You are Sentinel of this House. When you walk into a room filled with those people, you will know that you are not one of them – you will know that you are more than they are… You are nothing more, and nothing less, Merit, than exactly who you are. 


At least the love-triangle-ish madness is short-lived. Seriously, that shit with Ethan was so awkward!! Ethan Sullivan, the Master of the Cadogan House and Merit’s Boss Man, and Merit have some lusty romantic feelings for each other that they’re fighting off. But all their interactions (while, yes, some of them were mighty delicious and fiery), were a bit petty and dramatic. Classic love-triangle moves, which I don’t always mind, but yeah I just wasn’t loving it here. At least we got some vulnerability in this one, so there should be some tender friendship moments upcoming? And that’s Definitely good news!!

✨ I just have so many questions. I guess that’s why this is a 13-book urban fantasy series.

 

Conclusion: 

The end of this book felt like Harry Potter book five. Just unbelievably antsy and anxious but ? Why? I have no theme music to blame this time. There’s just so many balls in the air, so many questions about Mallory, (many, many, many) about Celine, Morgan, and vague shifter comments? Why is Merit’s vampire so vexing and wishy-washy? What happened to Merit’s sister? Also… who is the mysterious vampire from her grandpa’s office? Couldn’t say. Guess I should just continue reading…?

Anyway. This book was a bit of a rollercoaster! So much happened, so much action, reveals, woah. The “bridge book,” per se, a pivot from the introduction to vampirism and war, to life as a Sentinel and Badass Vampire. I’m excited for more :)

Series Reading Order

     

< Check out all my reviews from this series here! >

Other books you may enjoy…

    

< Check out more vampire romances here! >

Have you read a Chloe Neill book? Are you a vampire or a shifter lover? Let me know in the comments down below, I’d love to hear from you!


2 responses to “Review: Friday Night Bites by Chloe Neill

  1. I just realised that whenever you mentioned this on insta, I thought I didn’t know the series but I lied! I have seen these around! Just not read them or really looked into them haha

    This sounds fun outside of those friendship/ love triangle things

    • It is a really fun series! I’ve read through book.. eight?… now. I have to say, it’s almost like binge-ing a series on Netflix than reading eight books. It takes place in Chicago, and I’ve been having a lot of fun with the culture. Merit loves her food, and she loves forcing others to expand their knowledge and try the good stuff with her :) There’s some forced drama, but it really didn’t hold me back too much in enjoying this series :)

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