This seventh book in the series by Carrie Vaughn about radio show host turned werewolf turned celebrity Kitty Norville contains a lot that’s familiar from previous novels in the series.  Many of the people she’s encountered before come back to make an appearance, which gives us a story that really turns the series on edge.

At first glance, Kitty’s House of Horrors might seem like a bit of a groaner when it comes to the plot.  Kitty is approached about doing a paranormal reality show, a kind of big brother meets… well, everything supernatural.  In addition to Kitty, Tina from Paradox PI, Odysseus Grant who is a magician with a different understanding of the universe, Jeffrey Miles who is a John Edwards-style psychic, and more are invited to a remote house in Montana.  They are put there with Conrad Garrett, an author who is a skeptic and has managed to debunk every alleged supernatural person or event he has witnessed.  It would seem the idea is that they need to convince Conrad that they are for real.  However, there is a much more nefarious plot behind the scenes.

What made Kitty’s House of Horrors different from the series is that it took Kitty out of her element and away from her comfort zone.  She’s not behind a microphone doing her radio show.  Although that skill benefits her a little bit, being front and center for a potential television show, she’s away from her friends and security. Her husband and fellow lycanthrope, Ben, wasn’t invited and is busy handling the parole hearing for Cormac.  Kitty is on her own, with the exception of some of the characters we’ve gotten to know over the course of her previous adventures.

This is the one reason at this point in the series you really need to have read the previous novels.  There is too much that is built on what happened then and why the people with whom Kitty is at the house do mean something to her. At the same time, there’s a better grasp of why putting her in this situation is so disconcerting for her.

When I first started reading Kitty’s House of Horrors, I sort of groaned inwardly.  I was happy to see so many of these characters back as I was hoping to see them again, but I thought the reality show concept was going to be silly.  Vaughn turns the story on its ear and really creates a page-turner.  I could hardly wait to see what was going to happen next, how everything would turn out, and who would be left standing at the end of it all.  This might be a bit darker than some of the other books as the body count does rise (and with people I liked!) but it works so well with plenty of action.

Easily Kitty’s House of Horrors is the best book in the series.  It feels like every book in the series so far was building toward this one.  Kitty makes some new friends, loses some old ones, and has to stand on her own without her usual support network.  If you like the supernatural that’s a bit on the light side, this series has been a lot of fun for me.  Here it gets a bit darker, but it feels like a great payoff for some of the lighter moments in the series so far.

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