Kitty Norville is the main character of a series of novels by Carrie Vaughn

Carrie Vaughn

Carrie Vaughn is an American author who writes the urban fantasy Kitty Norville series. She has published more than 50 short stories in science fiction and fantasy magazines as well as short story anthologies and internet magazines...

. She is a werewolf

Werewolf

A werewolf, also known as a lycanthrope , is a mythological or folkloric human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or an anthropomorphic wolf-like creature, either purposely or after being placed under a curse...

 who hosts a popular syndicated radio phone-in show based in Denver called "The Midnight Hour". The program focuses on supernatural issues.

Kitty and the Midnight Hour

'Kitty' Norville, a late-night radio DJ, accidentally starts a late-night talk show about Werewolves, Vampires, and other mythical creatures. The catch is - she's a werewolf herself, and the secret is supposed to stay silent.

Plot points

• Carl is the Alpha of the pack and therefore able to physically dominate his pack.
• Kitty spends the novel dealing with multiple attempts on her life.
• A preacher is offering to 'save' the supernatural community if they come and join his traveling Bible show. A Midnight Hour listener calls in to confirm Kitty's suspicions that all is not right with this show. This plot point is completed in Kitty Goes to Washington.
• Being supernatural is not a state Kitty wants her listeners to aspire to. While it may sound cool, the reality is not what they expect.

Themes

• Kitty begins the hero’s journey to realize her own power. Her inner submissive wolf and her human lack of confidence make her the victim throughout most of the book. When her face is hidden and only her voice is heard, a more confident Kitty emerges.
• Kitty distrusts the easy surface solutions to her problems that other characters offer her. Instead, she encourages her listeners to think for themselves.

Kitty Goes to Washington

Some editions of this novel also includes the short story Kitty Meets the Band.

Plot points

• Kitty learns more about vampires, whom she was generally suspicious of, and stays with one during her trip. This vampire has kept close ties to her mortal family, who all seem to love their many times great-grandmother.

• A new love interest appears in the form of a were-jaguar, names Louis who is also part of the Brazilian embassy.

• Ben's relationship with Kitty and his personality are developed.

• The supernatural community claims werewolves and vampires are created by a disease. Government researchers decide to medically study victims of such attacks.

• Kitty meets a psychic and television personality. At first she believes he is a hoax, but after speaking with him for a few minutes she becomes convinced he is genuine and realizes how ironic her behavior is given her condition.

• Kitty and company defeat a powerful fae posing as a Christian preacher who can "cure" werewolves and vampires. Instead, he is feeding on the hopes and fears of his supernatural congregation. The fae is banished from this world, and may or may not return in future installments. The supernaturals under his control were freed.

• The crazed senator from the kidnaps Kitty. He wants to show the world how vicious werewolves are, and keeps her caged up and under cameras during a full moon. She changes, but rather than being vicious and entertaining for the newsmen, she curls up in the back of her cell.

Themes

• Kitty faces persecution for being a werewolf. Vaughn explores similarities between Kitty’s situation and both 1950’s McCarthyism (particularly with the extremist senator character) and modern day homophobia/gay rights issues.

• Vaughn, through the character of Kitty, maintains that the civil liberties in the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights apply to all US citizens.

• Issues of the right to privacy versus the First Amendment rear their head when Kitty meets a television journalist who is determined to capture her face on film. Kitty still wants to maintain a private life and does not wish to be photographed.

• Kitty's privacy is taken from her, and she is exploited for infotainment news.

• Kitty looks for someone to protect her because she still feels like an omega wolf. Each protector she selects eventually fails to live up to her ideals, and she ends up having to manage on her own. In this process, she gains more independence.

• At the end of the book, Kitty sues the people who have harmed her, unlike her previous habit of keeping her mouth closed and taking abuse. Kitty has become more assertive.

Kitty Takes a Holiday

After her lycanthropy is captured on film in Washington, Kitty decides to go on vacation. She rents a cabin and decides to write a book of her memoirs. Trouble quickly ensues as slaughtered animals are left outside her door and a visitor from her past arrives with unexpected news.

Plot summary

With the money she got from her lawsuits in Washington, Kitty has decided to take some time off from her radio show. Inspired by Thoreau and his experiences at Walden

Walden Pond

Walden Pond is a 31-metre-deep lake in Massachusetts . It is in area and around, located in Concord, Massachusetts, in the United States...

, she rents a cabin and beings to write a book, although she has a hard time focusing.

During Kitty's vacation, Cormac drives up to her cabin with an injured Ben and tells Kitty that he had called Ben to help with a werewolf hunt. Ben was attacked and infected by one of the werewolves, who Cormac then killed. They mend Ben the best they can while Ben makes it clear that he would rather be dead than a werewolf. Kitty decides that she is going to show Ben that he can live with lycanthropy

Lycanthropy

Lycanthropy is the professed ability or power of a human being to undergo transformation into a werewolf, or to gain wolf-like characteristics. The term comes from Greek Lykànthropos : λύκος, lykos + άνθρωπος, ànthrōpos...

. She takes him in, then finds that the only way to make him safe is to create a new pack of the two of them, which makes her alpha. She is with him for his first change on the full moon.

While Ben is being tended to, Kitty tells Cormac about the dead animals that have been left on her door step along with small barbed-wire crosses. He thinks that these objects are part of a curse and makes some calls. The objects begin to get worse as a circle of crosses are left surrounding Kitty's cabin and skinned animals are left hanging in the trees. Cormac continues to look into the curse, until he finds Ben and Kitty sleeping in each others arms. Upset, he gets in his Jeep and leaves.

A few nights later, Tony Rivera shows up at the cabin, called by Cormac. He tells Kitty that he can find out who is attempting to use magic on her. He traces the magic back to Alice and Sheriff Marks, but it backfired and drew dark energy to the region rather than repelling it. The locals agree to break the curse on Kitty. As they are about to lift it, the use of magic draws the attention of the skinwalker that had been involved in the attack on Ben. Kitty tries to fend it off, but it pins her to the ground and attacks. Cormac arrives in time to injure the skinwalker, who shifts back to Miriam Wilson, and then he kills her.

Despite the killing being self-defense, Cormac is arrested. Ben and Kitty work to prove his innocence by driving to New Mexico, where Ben had been attacked, to try to find evidence that Miriam was a skinwalker. Though the local attorney believes in skin-walkers, he is being pressured by Sheriff Marks to press charges, and Cormac has too much of a record of skirting the law to not prosecute. Cormac takes a plea-bargain of four years in prison. Kitty ends her vacation after Cormac's trial, and goes back to her show, "Kitty and the Midnight Hour." She also finishes her book.

Plot points

• Ben becomes a werewolf.

• We learn about Cormac’s past and his family.

• Kitty receives several different forms of magical protection.

Themes

• Kitty reflects on Thoreau repeatedly through the book, trying to liken her urge to hide in the woods to his Walden Pond experiences.

• Insular small towns and their prejudices against outsiders are examined. The problems Kitty endures on her retreat are in part caused because she is a media sensation.

• Kitty finds that she cannot be a lone wolf and enjoys having her own pack.

Kitty and the Silver Bullet

The fourth book in the Kitty Norville series was released in 2008.

After visiting Cormac in jail, Kitty has a miscarriage. Kitty and Ben are visited by Rick, who tells them he needs to take over as head vampire of Denver and asks them if they will help. Kitty declines and Rick leaves. Later, Kitty is told that her mother may have cancer. Kitty rushes to Denver to see her mother taking Ben with her, and Kitty introduces Ben to her family. Kitty meets a new vampire: Mercedes Cook, an actress. Kitty then meets Carl and Meg again and they add to the problems with Rick and the head vampire problem, Ben becomes worried for Kitty's safety and teaches her how to use a gun. At the end Kitty shoots Meg and Carl is killed by his pack and Kitty and Ben become the Alpha pair of the pack. Ben also proposes to Kitty.

Plot Points

• Kitty returns to Denver with Ben and must deal with Carl and Meg.
• The vampires gear up for a fight over leadership, and much is revealed about the habits of vampires in Kitty's universe.
• Kitty has a miscarriage.
• Ben and Kitty become engaged.

Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand

Already the alpha pair of Denver's werewolf pack, Kitty and Ben now plan to tie the knot human-style by eloping to Vegas. Kitty is looking forward to sipping fru-fru drinks by the pool and doing her popular radio show on live TV, but her hotel is stocked with werewolf-hating bounty hunters. Elsewhere on the Strip an old-school magician might be wielding the real thing; the vampire community is harboring a dark secret; and the irresistible star of a suspicious animal act is determined to seduce Kitty. Sin City has never been so wild, and this werewolf has never had to fight harder to save not only her wedding, but her very life.

Kitty Raises Hell

Sometimes what happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas.
Kitty and Ben flee The City That Never Sleeps, thinking they were finished with the dangers there, but the sadistic cult of lycanthropes and their vampire priestess have laid a curse on Kitty in revenge for her disrupting their rituals. Starting at the next full moon, danger and destruction the form of fire strikes Kitty and the pack of werewolves she's sworn to protect.
She enlists the help of a group of TV paranormal investigators - one of whom has real psychic abilities - to help her get to the bottom of the curse that's been laid on her. Rick, the Master vampire of Denver, believes a deeper plot lies behind the curse, and he and Kitty argue about whether or not to accept the help of a professional demon hunter - and vampire - named Roman, who arrives a little too conveniently in the nick of time.
Unable to rely on Rick, and unwilling to accept Roman's offer of help for a price, Kitty and her band of allies, including Vegas magician Odysseus Grant and Kitty's own radio audience, mount a trap for the supernatural being behind the curse, a destructive force summoned by the vengeful cult, a supernatural being that none of them ever thought to face.

Kitty's House of Horrors

Talk radio host and werewolf Kitty Norville has agreed to appear on TV's first all-supernatural reality show. She's expecting cheesy competitions and manufactured drama starring shapeshifters, vampires, and psychics. But what begins as a publicity stunt will turn into a fight for her life.

The cast members, including Kitty, arrive at the remote mountain lodge where the show is set. As soon as filming starts, violence erupts and Kitty suspects that the show is a cover for a nefarious plot. Then the cameras stop rolling, cast members start dying, and Kitty realizes she and her monster housemates are ironically the ultimate prize in a very different game. Stranded with no power, no phones, and no way to know who can be trusted, she must find a way to defeat the evil closing in . . . before it kills them all.

Kitty Goes to War

Kitty Norville, Alpha werewolf and host of The Midnight Hour, a radio call-in show, is contacted by a friend at the NIH's Center for the Study of Paranatural Biology. Three Army soldiers recently returned from the war in Afghanistan are being held at Ft. Carson in Colorado Springs. They're killer werewolves--and post traumatic stress has left them unable to control their shape-shifting and unable to interact with people. Kitty agrees to see them, hoping to help by bringing them into her pack.

Meanwhile, Kitty gets sued for libel by CEO Harold Franklin after featuring Speedy Mart--his nationwide chain of 24-hour convenience stores with a reputation for attracting supernatural unpleasantness--on her show.

Very bad weather is on the horizon.

Kitty's Big Trouble

Kitty Norville is back and in more trouble than ever. Her recent run-in with werewolves traumatized by the horrors of war has made her start wondering how long the US government might have been covertly using werewolves in combat. Have any famous names in our own history might have actually been supernatural? She's got suspicions about William Tecumseh Sherman. Then an interview with the right vampire puts her on the trail of Wyatt Earp, vampire hunter.

But her investigations lead her to a clue about enigmatic vampire Roman and the mysterious Long Game played by vampires through the millennia. That, plus a call for help from a powerful vampire ally in San Francisco, suddenly puts Kitty and her friends on the supernatural chessboard, pieces in dangerously active play. And Kitty Norville is never content to be a pawn. . . .

Kitty's Greatest Hits

Compilation of Kitty Norville, short fiction including 2 new stories.