Kitty’s Greatest Hits

Kitty’s Greatest Hits (2011) Carrie Vaughn

Kitty’s Greatest Hits is a short story anthology, so its timeline is interwoven between the various Kitty books. There are also several stories that don’t have Kitty in them at all, although most of those stories contain peripheral characters, and all are set within Kitty’s world. I’d read several of these stories before, because I love short stories and buy anthologies containing authors I like when I come across them. That said, there were plenty of stories in this collection I had not read before.

My favorite story in the collection was probably “Conquistador de la Noche” which tells the story of how Rick was turned to a vampire. Even knowing that Ricardo de Avila was the Rick who appears in Kitty’s stories, I still worried about how he was going to get out of the mess he was in.

We also finally learn the story of what happened to Cormac in prison, and how he ended up working with Amelia. Although it was interesting to learn, I can’t say it was anything close to my favorite story. It wasn’t bad, but I often find Cormac hard to like. There are also stories of Cormac’s past, including a story with Cormac and Ben as young teens.

My favorite Kitty story was the first in the collection, “Il Est Ne” a story about a werewolf who was turned and then abandoned to his fate and stumbles across Kitty as she is trying to figure out how to deal with the mess of her own life.

If you have not read the Kitty books, this would be a good introduction to her world. None of the stories require knowledge or background of the books, and all give you a taste of both Kitty and the world she inhabits.
Rating: 9/10

Published by Tor

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