All I can say is -- WOW. Usually by the time a series passes the tenth book, the storyline and ideas have pretty much worn themselves out, but Rachel Caine continues to invent and to stun. Best of all, they're usually not the kind of "out of nowhere" plot twists that are almost as irritating as formulaic plots. There's an actual progression to the whole series that feels natural. I admit, a couple books ago I was worried that the series would go a little off into the deep end -- the draug did kind of come out of nowhere and frankly, I've never been a fan of Shane much to begin with -- but I am amazed by this book. I was glad to see Claire outside the usual setting of Morganville, but had no idea what to expect. The beginning was a little slow, but some serious stuff went down, enough that the book went from a 3 to a 5. 
 This is one of those rare series that actually gets better with each book. There are so many YA and urban fantasy vampire characters now who are two dimensional and basically just a bunch of "cool things" that the author can think of, all thrown together. What I love so much about Caine's vampires is that they each have their distinctive personalities that are partly because they're vampires, but partly because that's just them. Oliver, Myrnin, and Jesse really shine in this installment. Oliver remains a good-bad enigma, Myrnin is...well, more like the scarier version of Myrnin that we first met, and I liked Jesse/Lady Gray so much that I didn't miss Amelie at all. (Let's face it, a good leader usually has to be a bit boring in the end.) 
 About Jesse... Well, I'm not sure I like her romantic role, but then again, am I the only one who kept imagining the Black Widow version of Scarlett Johansson? (Given that Claire has a poster of Hawkeye on the wall and the whole Hawkeye/Black Widow thing, it's probably not a stretch to say that maybe Caine was inspired by The Avengers.) She's stunning, she's curvy, she's red-haired, she's calm and super deadly. Hmmm. I should probably read some of the other reviews for this book to see if anyone else has already pointed all of this out. I also vaguely remembered the whole "Lady Gray" reference, but it wasn't until the whole Nine Days Queen until my memory of AP Euro kicked in.