Drink Deep by Chloe Neill

Title: Drink Deep
Author: Chloe Neill
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Chicagoland Vampires # 5

Trade Paperback, 321 Pages
Publication: November 1, 2011 by NAL

Source: Personal Library

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Clouds are brewing over Cadogan House, and recently turned vampire Merit can’t tell if this is the darkness before the dawn or the calm before the storm. With the city iself in turmoil over paranormals and the state threatening to pass a paranormal registration act, times haven’t been this precarious for vampires since they came out of the closet. If only they could lay low for a bit, and let the mortals calm down.

That’s when the waters of Lake Michigan suddenly turn pitch black-and things really start getting ugly.

Chicago’s mayor insists it’s nothing to worry about, but Merit knows only the darkest magic could have woven a spell powerful enough to change the very fabric of nature. She’ll have to turn to friends old and new to find out who’s behind this, and stop them before it’s too late for vampires and humans alike.

Neill has a spinoff series, Wild Hunger, from her Chicogoland Vampires releasing next week and I thought maybe I should go back and try to finish the series. I last left off with Hard Bitten and it ended there because I was too devastated to continue. Ethan, the Master of Cadogen House died! But I took the plunge and started reading Drink Deep long after the series ended. It was surprisingly easy to re-immerse myself in the series as if I read Hard Bitten yesterday and not 6-7 years ago. However, the spark I found in the first three books were totally lost in Drink Deep; which made it difficult to get through the book.

Drink Deep read like a whodunit novel with very little action. The natural elements in Chicago was going haywire because the balance of good and evil were being mixed and Merit and Jonah were running all over the city, going from one supernatural group to the next asking if they done it or knew who did it. That pretty much summed up 80% of the book and the other 20% involved turmoil in-house thanks to the GP rep Frank. Drink Deep left me so bored. And the characters weren’t making anything better. Yes, I understand everyone is still grieving two months after Ethan’s death but it made for very emo characters (those within the Cadogen House). All the other characters were bland, two-dimensional or irritable/angry. No one likes reading those type of characters. Thus making the entire reading experience unpleasant.

Like many others, I don’t plan on continuing with this series. I don’t have the desire or care to see Merit’s journey through. Not anymore. Ironically, I still plan on checking out the spin-off, hoping that the spark that I originally loved about this series can be found again.