Kitty Goes To Washington by Carrie Vaughn

Kitty gets stuck in the middle of one senator’s public plan to expose supernaturals to the world.  Luckily, the plan doesn’t get the response the senator is hoping for, but Kitty still has to suffer the brunt of it all.

Title:  Kitty Goes to Washington
Author:  Carrie Vaughn
Series: Kitty Norville Book 02
Publish Date:  July 31, 2007
Genre:  Urban Fantasy
Source: Purchased

Publisher’s Description: Celebrity werewolf and late-night radio host Kitty Norville prefers to be heard and not seen. So when she’s invited to testify at a Senate hearing on behalf of supernaturals, and her face gets plastered on national TV, she inherits a new set of friends, and enemies, including the vampire mistress of the city; an über-hot Brazilian were-jaguar; and a Bible-thumping senator who wants to expose Kitty as a monster. Kitty quickly learns that in this city of dirty politicians and backstabbing pundits, everyone’s itching for a fight.

Possible spoilers beyond this point.

---

Kat Mandu says…

If I thought Kitty had a lot to contend with in book one, it’s nothing compared to the stress level of Kitty Goes To Washington.

When she’s summoned to Washington D.C. for a Senate hearing, she probably doesn’t expect to find a vampire mistress of the city who acts like her mother and tries to keep her within her home for “safety” reasons. She does encounter “Crescent” a bar where lycanthropes get together – and shacks up with a wereleopard named Luis. And she probably doesn’t expect to get kidnapped and forced to shift into werewolf form in front of a live news crew.

Kitty doesn’t really manage her own life well in this, forced to take different routes by different people every time. Alette tries to control her, Duke wants to label her a monster, Elijah Smith tries to kill her, and the reporter Stockton just manages to screw her life up more. A lot of the actions she takes are because someone else gives her no choice. Sure, she completes tasks with her own flair, but essentially she’s not in control of her own life – yet.

Cormac and Ben come back and help her out of various situations. There are a few new characters introduced, some good, and some bad. Duke being the bad, being the religious nut who wants to expose lycanthropes as dangers to the country. And Jeffrey Miles being the good psychic that Kitty underestimates.

But now the cat’s out of the bag and Kitty has to deal with the whole nation knowing what she is (and her mother). It proves we’re going to be seeing a lot more trouble in the future novels.

I enjoyed this one and the way Vaughn develops the plot.

Invested Ivana says…

In Kitty and the Midnight Hour, we saw Kitty stand up for herself against the wishes of her pack to keep her radio show.  But the consequences of that decision are harsh; she has to leave Denver and her family, and her best friend, T.J. is gone.  In Washington, Kitty experience more things — good and bad — the help her on her way to more independence and control of her life.

Two of my favorite characters show up in Washington; Alette and Fritz.  Fritz is a WWII veteran and werewolf who opens up to Kitty right before he dies of old age.  Fritz is a puzzle to Kitty; he’s old, he’s survived so much, and he’s so bitter.  Kitty’s penchant for stories draws her to Fritz, of course.  Personally, I’d love to see more written about Fritz and his experiences in the war.  I’ll bet his stories come with some fantastic lessons.

I also love Alette, a super classy vampire mistress who shows Kitty that vampires don’t have to be like the ones she’s met in Denver.  Like werewolves, vampires are just people, too.

In Washington, the real monsters are the humans, particularly Senator Drake and Dr. Flemming, who kidnap and expose Kitty to further their own agendas.  Though Kitty is getting pushed around by these two just like she was pushed around by her pack, she is able to take some control and come out of the closet on her terms, somewhat.  It’s an important lesson; we can’t control everything, but we can respond to crappy situations in the best way possible, even gaining a little control where we previously had none.

Washington gives Kitty more experiences and more contacts to help her on her journey of growing up and taking control.  Again, a favorite book in a favorite series; it was such a pleasure to read it again for the One Book Two Read Along.

Our reviews in this series…

• Kitty and the Midnight Hour

Other reviews…

• The Book Smugglers
• Love Vampires
• Rabid Reads

If you like this book…

…you might try Patricia Brigg’s Mercy Thompson series, Rachel Vincent’s Shifter series, or Eileen Wilk’s World of the Lupi series.