Enemy Within

Enemy Within is a Science Fiction Romance story by Marcella Burnard which tells the story of Captain Alexandria Rose Idylle otherwise known as Ari.  Here is the blurb from Goodreads.

After a stint in an alien prison, Captain Ari Rose wonders why she even bothered to survive. Stripped of her command and banished to her father's scientific expedition to finish a Ph.D. she doesn't want, Ari never planned to languish quietly behind a desk. She wasn't built for it, either. But when pirates commandeer her father's ship, Ari once again becomes a prisoner.

As far as pirate leader Cullin is concerned, Ari's past imprisonment puts her dead centre in Cullin's sights. If she hasn't been brainwashed and returned as a spy, then he's convinced she must be part of a traitorous alliance endangering billions of lives. Cullin can't afford the desire she fires within him and he'll stop at nothing, including destroying her, to uncover the truth.

If you know me at Goodreads or you have read any of my reviews before you will know that I am not one for lots of romance in a book.  Well this book had the typical romantic story of kidnapped girl falling for her kidnapper, not something that really floats my boat but  I have to say I really enjoyed it to the point where I couldn’t put it down.  I must be getting mushy in my old age or I've spent too much time reading dark gritty books.  I was concerned I wouldn't like it at the beginning of the book.  I found the pirate Cullin Seaghdh to be quite chauvinistic, Ari played the little lady, they fell for each other very quickly and the author wrote lines such as.

Anticipation sizzled through him, settling low in his belly.  Cursing the tightening in his groin, he shifted and pushed the feeling away. 

This really isn’t the kind of stuff I enjoy reading but I stuck with it and I’m glad I did as it improved no end.  Once I got into the book we soon had a nice plot going, yes some of it was see through and we knew how it would all turn out but some of it was unexpected too.  The Sci Fi was quite light but I loved it when we finally meet the Aliens and the events that ensue.  Hicci the Alien held Ari prisoner was fantastic a real evil character.  I liked Ari and Cullin they did annoy me at times hiding their feelings for each other and such but in general I enjoyed them.  OK so it might appear from this review that I wasn’t that keen on the book but that isn’t the case and I would like to give Enemy Within 4 laser beams out of 5.  If you like Romance with a bit of Sci Fi I recommend you check this book out.    

   

Halloween Hop

This Halloween hop is hosted by Jeremy Bates the instructions are simple:

1) Add your blog to the list on the host blog.

2) Over the Halloween weekend (October 28-31) visit as many of the other blogs listed below as you wish.

3) Be sure to mention your favorite monster movie or book and your Halloween costume this year.

4) If you like the blog, follow it!

5) Grab the badge here and stick it on your blog to spread the word! (If you scratch it, it smells like pumpkin).

Weekend Blog Hop

This is a blog hop hosted by The Blog Entourage and Mom's bookshelf and more. It gives bloggers an opportunity to read and follow each others blogs and make some friends.  Please visit the host's blogs for more details.  If you would like to follow me please leave a comment saying you are a new follower and your blog link and I will come and follow you back.  Have a great weekend!

Follow Friday (7)

Follow Friday is a weekly blog hop hosted by Parajunkee and Alison can Read.  Please click on one of their links for the rules.  This week’s question is.

Q. If you could have dinner with your favourite book character, who would you eat with and what would you serve?

A. This is really tough as I have so many favourite characters but I am going to go with Shamus O'Flynn from the Allie Beckstrom series by Devon Monk.  I want to have dinner with a man and he is an easy going guy who has an affinity with death magic.  He is very funny so we could have a good laugh together.  He doesn't seem very fussy so I would get some beers and order a pizza.  I'm a little bit in love with him too so I hope we can also find something else to fill the time.  I'm on about playing Jenga!  You guys have dirty minds :)

Thank you for stopping by, please leave a comment below and tell me your answer.  If you would like to follow my blog please say you are a new follower and I promise to stop by and follow you too.  Have a great Follow Friday and Happy Reading.

Top Spot

What was your favourite read this month? What was your Top Spot?

Top Spot is a new monthly blog meme hosted by the Skype Sisters. Every month we will get together to share our favourite read from that month! This meme will take place over the last weekend of every month, giving us all a chance to gush over the great reads we've encountered and bring an awesome ending to the current month. The Top Spot book can be anything you've read, whether it's old or new, an ARC or a finished copy. All September reads counts!

How to play along:

- Pick up your favourite read from the current month.

- Make a blog post stating your top Spot pick and share with is why it got the Top Spot for you, and link your post back to Skypesisters.com.

- Add reviews, book summaries or teasers in the post as well for people to look at but please don’t put any spoilers.

- Add your post in the linky and enjoy the current months favourites. 

My favourite book this month was Driven by Eve Kenin .  This is a Science Fiction Romance book that is set in a post apocalyptic world.  I have always watched a lot of Sci Fi but Sci Fi Romance is a genre that I am new too and one that I am currently obsessed with.  I loved the characters in this book I am always a sucker for a hot dangerous bad guy and Wizard is just such a character.  Raina is awesome too she is tough and independent, but to the point of being very lonely.  I enjoyed seeing their relationship develop amongst the trials of their journey.  I really couldn't put this down and was absolutely gutted to find out there aren't any more books about these two characters.  This is quite a dark book as you may expect as it is set in such a bleak world but Wizard and Raina make it an extraordinary read.  I am so glad that I bought this book.  If you would like to read my review of Driven please click here.

Thank you for stopping by.  If you do not have a blog or you aren't taking part in the Top Spot meme I would still love to hear what your favourite read of October was so please feel free to leave a comment below.

Here are the other blogs taking part.

Storm Born #4

I was so happy when Sea Lion Books sent me the fourth installment of Storm Born.  I can’t believe I had never read a graphic novel before and now I’m addicted to this series.  All of my questions were answered in this episode as we find out a lot about Eugenie, such as why are all of the Gentry after her and how they know her name.  The gorgeous Kiyo also makes another appearance and we find out his secrets too.  There is a huge family secret that is revealed, and we also learn of a prophecy involving Eugenie.  But does Eugenie rescue the kidnapped girl from the otherworld?  Well you will just have to read it and find out for yourself.  Yet again we are left with a massive cliffhanger that leaves me craving the next issue. Another fantastic issue, I would like to award Storm Born 5 out of 5 fangs.

You may also like my reviews of Storm Born 1, Storm Born 2 and Storm Born 3.

Song Of Scarabaeus

Song Of Scarabaeus is a Science Fiction book written by Sara Creasy.  Edie Sha’nim was born on the planet Talas to a native father and human scientist mother.  Abandoned by her parents at birth and thought of as an outcast by the other natives Edie grew up in one of the camps where she displayed a natural talent for talking to tech.  As a teenager she is rescued by the Crib they insert an implant into her arm that gives her a dose of the special neurotoxin that natives of Talas need in order to stay alive and she is trained to become the best cyphertech there is with an outstanding talent for biocyph seed technology.  It is now some years later and Edie reluctantly works for the Crib travelling from planet to planet terraforming them with her biocyph expertise so that humans can inhabit the planet, whilst the Crib bleeds the inhabitants dry.  The story begins with Edie kidnapped by renegade mercenaries who want to free the terraformed planets from being under the Crib’s control whilst also making some money themselves.  In order to keep Edie safe and to ensure that she complies with the mercenaries demands they assign her an escaped freedom fighter now captured slave called Finn.  Finn has a chip is in head that is linked to Edie’s chip so if Edie dies or is further than 2000m away Finn will die too.  The mission that the mercenaries have kidnapped Edie for is to go to the planet Scarabaeus and retrieve the non-working BRAT's that Edie put there seven years ago.   

I really enjoyed this book.  It took me a little bit of time to get into it as I thought the start was a bit slow but once we get into the action the pace soon picked up.  I like Edie she isn’t your feisty action hero girl but more or a nerdy geeky one, she seems to have had a pretty sheltered life at the hands of the Crib and she relies on the protection of others.  And then there is the gorgeous brooding tough guy Finn who plays the reluctant hero.  I have a huge soft spot for him and I wouldn’t have restrained myself like Edie did when they find themselves alone together.  The supporting characters were very interesting too especially the navpilot Cat who could have a book in her own right.  Despite the sexual chemistry between Edie and Finn there wasn’t that much romance going on.  Their relationship and banter between them reminded a lot of Mac and Barrons from the Fever series.  So if you are looking for steamy scenes you will be disappointed but if like me you love it when an author builds the sexual tension rather than just have characters go at it like bunnies you will enjoy this book.  I hope this continues to be the case in the next book until we get a sexual explosion of major proportions.  The science parts of the book were hard science in my opinion and sometimes I was a bit lost with all the descriptions but I still managed to get the gist of what was going on.  I loved visiting the planet Scarabaeus Ms Creasy created a fascinating place along with horrifying descriptions of the events that follow.  I will warn you now, there is a big cliffhanger ending but that is ok becasue the second book Children Of Scarabaeus is already out so you don't have to wait to find out what happens next.  In fact I am off now to purchase it.  I would like to give this book 4 laser beams out of 5 and would recommend this to people who like Sci Fi who like a little bit of Romance.

Other books similar to this are Ambassadora, Driven and Grimspace.     

Teaser Tuesday (7)

Today is Teaser Tuesday which is a weekly meme hosted by Miz B of Should Be Reading 

Anyone can play along just open the book that you are reading to a random page and share 2 teaser sentances from somewhere on that page.  Please do not post spoilers and make sure you include the title and author of the book so that other TT can add the book to their tbr list if they fancy.

Today my teaser is taken from page 122 of a science fiction romance book called Enemy Within by Marcella Burnard, to find out more about the book click here.

His expression lit from within as he closed warm fingers over hers and she realized what she'd done. For the first time, she'd reached for him of her own volition.  The golden fire in his eyes and the tantalizing caress of his thumb on the back of her hand drove fierce, pointed want straight through her core.

Thank for stopping by my blog I love to read comments so please feel free to leave one I always follow up on them.  Happy reading.

Storm Born #3

Please click on the links for my reviews of Storm Born 1 and Storm Born 2.  Once again we pick up where Storm Born 2 left off Eugenie is summoning her three spirit helpers Volusian an evil spirit who wants to kill Eugenie himself once he is free from her, Nandi a zulu woman killed for being a witch and Finn a pixie creature.  Together they enter the Otherworld so that Eugenie can find and rescue the teenage girl that has been kidnapped.  We get to meet some of the Fae and see what the Otherworld looks like.  Eugenie makes a deal with one of the Fae kings so that she can get help in rescuing the girl but will things go to plan, you will have to read it to find out.  Once again I thoroughly enjoyed this graphic novel I like how the characters have been illustrated and there were some fight scenes that were well depicted.  I haven’t read the book by Richelle Mead where this graphic novel is taken from and you don’t need to in order to enjoy these books.  We are left with a cliffnager that has left me desperate for more.   I would like to give this 5 out of 5 fangs.

Follow Friday (6)

Follow Friday is a weekly blog hop hosted by Parajunkee and Alison can Read.  Please click on one of their links for the rules.  This week’s question is.

Q. What superhero is your alter ego?

A. My superhero alter ego would be Spiderman because like Spiderman I too have been bitten by a radioactive spider.  I can also spin webs from my wrists, climb walls and fight bad guys.  But Shhhh don't tell anyone after all it is my alter ego.

Thank you for stopping by, please leave a comment below and tell me your answer.  If you would like to follow my blog please say you are a new follower and I promise to stop by and follow you too.  Have a great Follow Friday and Happy Reading.

Found In Blood

Found InBlood is a horror novel by Maurice Lawless and it tells the story of Nelson Kirch who is an exorcist.  Nelson has a special gift that he obtained as a young boy which allows him to see demons and therefore those people who are possessed.  As a man of faith he can exorcise those demons and send them back to hell, but this is all in a days work for Nelson until he is called in to assist in an investigation.  Bodies are coming into the morgue with strange symbols branded into their skin then the dead bodies start mysteriously disappearing.  Nelson needs to find out what the symbols mean and on top of this help find a missing girl.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first started reading this book as I haven’t read a horror book in a long time.  I also tend to read books mainly by female authors with a female protagonist and this was neither but I do like stories about demons so I thought why not.  Well why not indeed, let me tell you I thought this book was brilliant and even though it was pretty gruesome and scary at times I couldn’t put it down.  It made a really nice change for me to read something from a male perspective too.  We are immediately thrown into the story with the opening scene that of Nelson performing an exorcism.  We are then taken on a journey into the investigation that kept me intrigued right up to the end.  The story is vividly described and well written, sometimes it is a little too vivid with what those naughty sexed up demons get up to, also the descriptions of the demons as Nelson sees them are wonderfully creative.  I liked Nelson straight away, he is a man of faith who is married to Carol and he has all the typical ordinary domestic problems like we all do like which kitchen cleaner to buy as well as those problems which are literally from hell.  I enjoyed learning about his past as the story progressed and there was a touching scene with his ex fiancé that made me shed a tear.  Not all of the demons are that evil and I loved Sam the pinstripe suit wearing blue rat incubus.  There is a lot going on in this book and I sometimes got a little confused with the story line and kept forgetting that some characters existed until they popped up again.  Whilst not a cliffhanger the ending has left me wanting to get hold of the next book Forged With Blood when it comes out next year.  This is a book that made me laugh, cry and poop my pants, well not really but I did find some of it scary but then again I am a big wuss who watches movies from behind a cushion.  A perfect book for this Halloween I would like to give Found In Blood 4 and a half pentagrams. 

Anarchy Zone Time Yarns

I received Anarchy Zone Time Yarns as an ARC from the publisher for an honest review.

Anarchy Zone Time Yarns is a collection of science fiction works put together by independent publisher Erin Lale and will be published in 2012. 

Poem

Stremliners by Gordon Yaswen

Artwork

Hope by Alex Storer

It All Goes Away by Lisa Yount

Short Stories

The Anarchy Zone by Erin Lale

14:00 Hours by Ian Miller

An Etonean Dilema by Humberto Sachs

Host by Giampietro Stocco

I really enjoyed this book I’m not one for anthologies usually as they tend to leave me wanting more and in the case of The Anarchy Zone by Erin Lale this was especially the case.  My two favourite stories were The Anarchy Zone and Host where both are set in a post-apocalyptic future.  The Anarcy Zone follows a young girl whose identity has been stolen so she has to go and live in the Anarchy Zone with all the other people and mutants who have been cast out of society.  Host is about people who live in a time where most of the population was wiped out centuries before by a comet crashing into the Earth.  People now have hosts living inside of them, they keep them young and living far longer than they should.  Maia who is a 90 year old women but looks in her twenties is in Africa conducting experiments on the host free humans.  There is a massive twist in this story that I did not see coming.  I really enjoyed this book and would like to give it 3 and a half laser beams.  For more information please visit Time Yarns.

Teaser Tuesday (6)

Today is Teaser Tuesday which is a weekly meme hosted by Miz B of Should Be Reading 

Anyone can play along just open the book that you are reading to a random page and share 2 teaser sentances from somewhere on that page.  Please do not post spoilers and make sure you include the title and author of the book so that other TT can add the book to their tbr list if they fancy.

Today my teaser is taken from page 16 of a horror book about Demons and Exorcists that I'm reading called Found In Blood by Maurice Lawless.  The book is quite scary but this teaser isn't and it made me smile, to find out more about the book click here.

 A man can get lost in his own mind while pondering the great decisions of life.  To wed or not wed?  Should he have children?  And which god for saken brand of kitchen cleaner did his wife want him to buy?  My eyes jumped from one bottle to the next, unable to fix on one.

Thank for stopping by my blog I love to read comments so please feel free to leave one I always follow up on them.  Happy reading. 

Storm Born #2

For my review of the first Storm Born graphic novel please click here.  So in Storm Born 2 we pick up where we left off in Storm Born 1 Eugenie is having a romantic time with the handsome vet Kiyo when an ice elemental shows up.  Before Eugenie can battle the creature Kiyo is already out of bed and kicking it's ass, however he does need help from Eugenie to send it back to the otherworld.  This leaves both parties questioning the other with ‘What are you?’.  We delve a bit more into Eugenie’s character and home life and we also have more questions which need answering like ‘How come all the creatures from the otherworld know her real name?’  Eugenie decides on her course of action for what to do about saving the kidnapped girl who is in the otherworld and this sets us up for the third instalment.  This series of graphic novels just keeps getting better and better and like in the first part, before I knew it I was at the end.  I can’t wait for the next one.  Once again the artwork is amazing and I want to give this graphic novel 5 out of 5 fangs, well done Sea Lion Books.

Secret Santa

I received this ARC novella from the author for an honest review and let me tell you it was as brilliant if not more so than the two previous Secret McQueen books that I have read.  If you would like please check my reviews of the earlier books please click on the book titles of Something Secret This Way Comes and A Bloody Good Secret.

Secret McQueen is a half werewolf half vampire ex bounty hunter now tribunal leader and as you can guess from the title the book is set at Christmas.  Secret has now been living with Desmond one of the two werewolves she is soul mated with for 6 months, she also still has Lucas as her other werewolf boyfriend and then there is the vampire Holden whom she has shared a kiss and a strange sex dream with.  As Secret is now a tribunal leader and no longer a bounty hunter she is getting bored with the whole no hunting thing that has been  imposed on her so when her cop friend Mercedes asks Secret to help out on a case she jumps at the chance.  Teenagers are going missing whilst other teenagers are being killed and their body parts being left around the city but is the killer human or other it is up to Secret to find and stop the killer before he strikes again, this time closer to home.

I thoroughly enjoyed this short story, Ms Dean’s books just keep getting better and the more I read about Secret the more I like her.  This book is a light fun Urban Fantasy read.  It was a great story that is well paced that kept my attention throughout.  Holden was featured more in this book with Secret, Desmond was there too and we met more of his family.   Lucas didn’t make an appearance at all but that was fine by me as Desmond and Holden are my favourite characters.  The plot kept me guessing until the end and there were some pretty gruesome scenes along the way that built the tension.  It was great to have a setting at Christmas and it made me want to drink some sherry and eat mince pies.  We were not left with a cliffhanger this time but Holden did make Secret promise him something that has me chomping at the bit for the next book.  Another great read from Ms Dean and I would like to give this book 4 and a half fangs.  Secret Santa is expected out in November.   

Guardian

Guardian is a short story by Elita Daniels and focuses on vampire Anna who was turned 8 years ago.  Vampirism is an infection that was accidentally discovered 30 years ago during a scientific experiment.  It is passed on by other vampires who are ‘carriers’ of the disease through their venom when they bite people.  Once turned a vampire must go into a camp where they are experimented on like animals in a lab. They are mistreated, abused and tortured all in the name of science to see how much of a threat they will be to society.  Once released the vampires must take a cocktail of drugs to control their blood lust.  They are also assigned a human protector, a Guardian, who is a bit like a parole officer. 

This isn’t your usual paranormal book.  There are no other creatures or special powers or battles etc as vampirism was accidentally invented by scientists.  There are no hunting demons or a big case to solve.  It just follows Anna who is a carrier vampire and her struggle with ordinary life and I really liked that, it made a change for me.  I sort of liked Anna she is a complicated character one minute then she is fine the next she acts very strange, she also acts kind of crazy and I just wanted to give her a slap at times.  Anna finds it very difficult to trust and love people, she prefers one night stands to a relationship and this is a big part of the book.  She has two completely different love interests and I was truly shocked to find out what happens in both relationships.  The story is very dark, Anna is abused in the book and she is deceived by those she finally comes to trust.  The characters are quite unpleasant people and I cheered when one finally met his demise.  The vampires are not sparkly they are dangerous sadistic people who like to play with humans and not in a good way.  The book is extremely fast paced.  At times I thought I had missed a page as the story jumps about so much and this did out me off.  I have mixed feelings about this book, on one hand I liked the different take on vampires by Ms Daniels and I do like to read dark stories but then on the other it was just too fast.  The story ends very abruptly another negative for me it was like the last page didn’t get printed.  On a plus point I feel that this could be a great book if it was fleshed out, wasn’t as fast paced and more time spent on it, I also love the cover.  If you like dark gritty writing maybe you should give this book a go.  I would like to give this book 3 fangs.   

Follow Friday (5)

Follow Friday is a weekly blog hop hosted by Parajunkee and Alison can Read.  This week’s question is.

Q. If you could have characters from a particular book meet and form an epic storyline with characters from a particukar TV series, which would you choose and why?

A. Oh this is really difficult.  For the TV show I'm going to choose one of my favourites Fringe.  I was then stuck with which book character would work, they need to be able to solve cases, be used to weirdness and be able to use a gun so I'm going to choose Anita Blake by Laurell K Hamilton .  I think she could help out the Fringe team with their strange cases.  I just hope she can rain in the Ardeur although it might be funny to see Anita lusting after Walter Bishop.   

Thank you for stopping by, please leave a comment below and tell me your answer.  If you would like to follow my blog please say you are a new follower and I promise to stop by and follow you too.  Have a great Follow Friday and Happy Reading.

Driven

Driven is a Science Fiction Romance book written by Eve Kenin, which is set in a post apocalyptic world where there has been two nuclear wars.  The world is run by a corrupt Government and a bad guy called Duncan Blane.  Extreme temperatures exist with the Northern part of the Earth a frozen waste land.  Nothing grows there and it is dark most of the day, the only way people can survive is by getting goods transported in by truckers.  One of those truckers is a woman called Raina Bowen and she is in a race to Gladow Station where the first truck there will win 50 million interdollars.  Raina is banking everything on winning that money so that she can have a better life for herself in the sun with the sister she has never met.  Hopefully this will be a safer life away from Duncan Blane who is out for Raina’s blood and eventual death.  To try and win the race Raina needs to travel the ICW which is illegally monopolized by Jansen trucks and in order to do this she needs a special license, and that’s how the book begins with Raina waiting at a truck stop for a guy called Wizard who will hopefully have a license for her.

I absolutely loved this book it was amazing.  If you have read any of my reviews before you will know that I have a lot of trouble with Paranormal Romance however I have no problems what so ever reading Science Fiction Romance weird huh? I think it is because from a very young age I have always watched and loved Sci Fi on tv.  The characters are wonderful Raina is an extremely independent tough and lonely young woman.  Wizard is a dangerous and good looking strange man who has no emotions at all.  It was great to find out about the characters pasts, and boy did they have horrible pasts and I loved seeing their relationship develop and how they changed each other.  There were lots of other great supporting characters too, such as the young orphan boy Ben and the evil Duncan Blane.  There are twists in the story and deception and heartbreak.  The science parts were easy to understand and the author portrayed a grim but vivid world.  The mix between romance and the main story is well balanced and there are a couple of sex scenes.  The pacing of the book is perfect and there is not one thing that I would like to change, well actually there is I would like more books about Raina and Wizard please.  I really cannot stress how much I loved this book and would like to give it 5 plasguns even though I want to give it more.

Teaser Tuesday

Today is Teaser Tuesday which is a weekly meme hosted by Miz B of Should Be Reading 

Anyone can play along just open the book that you are reading to a random page and share 2 teaser sentances from somewhere on that page.  Please do not post spoilers and make sure you include the title and author of the book so that other TT can add the book to their tbr list if they fancy.

Here is my teaser and it is taken from Song Of Scarabaeus by Sara Creasy page 206.

Dizzy,  A safe euphemism for what the painkillers had done to her earlier.  She blushed as she remembered the things she'd said, the way she'd clung to him.  The look in his eyes.


Thank for stopping by my blog I love to read comments so please feel free to leave one I always follow up on them.  Happy reading. 

Back From Holiday

Hey everyone I am back from my holiday adventures in Bilbao, Northern Spain.  I had a fantastic time and got to visit the Guggenheim by favourite architect Frank Gehry.  I work in architecture so it was fascinating to me to visit such an iconic building and hopefully it will get my creative jucies flowing when I get back to work.



I also got to read some books Ravenous By Sharon Ashwood, Driven by Eve Kenin and Guardian by Elita Daniels and I will have reviews for you later this week.

Teaser Tuesday

Today is Teaser Tuesday which is a weekly meme hosted by Miz B of Should Be Reading 

Anyone can play along just open the book that you are reading to a random page and share 2 teaser sentances from somewhere on that page.  Please do not post spoilers and make sure you include the title and author of the book so that other TT can add the book to their tbr list if they fancy.

I am going away on holiday for a week so I thought I would leave you with a longer teaser than usual.  It is taken from Ravenous by Sharon Ashwood page 250.

"Can I raise my hand for attention if someone tries to bite me?" Holly asked, trying for humour.

Alessandro looked at her with heat in his eyes, possessive and urgent.  "I will not allow that to happen."

That old-time caveman philosophy had never sounded so good. "Promise?"

He laid his hand over his heart and smiled faintly. "I don't share well."

Thank for stopping by my blog please feel free to leave a comment I always follow up on them although it may be a week before I can get back to you.  Happy reading. 

Spider's Revenge

“My name is Gin, and I kill people.”   Gin Blanco is an assassin called the Spider and Spider’s Revenge is the fifth book in the Elemental Assassin series.  This is a world where some people have magic that controls and manipulates the elements like Fire, Stone, Ice and Air.  If you have not read any of these books before then that is very sloppy, sloppy, sloppy of you because they are brilliant.  I would strongly advise that you do read them, and read them in order.  They are Spiders Bite, Web Of Lies, Venom, Tangled Threads and Spider’s revenge.  There will be spoilers ahead of the previous four books so here is your chance to look away now.

Genevieve Snow was a thirteen year old girl the day that the Fire Elemental Mab Monroe broke into her home and burnt and murdered her mother and older sister in front of her.  Mab then tortured Genevieve in order to get her hands her baby sister Bria.  But Genevieve had hidden her sister under the stairs and didn’t give up the location, not even when Mab taped Genevieve’s hands together and melted her spider rune, the rune for patience, between her palms and into her skin.  In all her fury little Genevieve called on her Stone Elemental power and collapsed her house about her including the stairs where her baby sister Bria was hiding.  It is now seventeen years later and Genevieve Snow is no more she is now Gin Blanco.  She was taken off the streets all those years ago by Fletcher Lane and trained to become an assassin not just any old assassin but the best assassin in the world, the Spider.

Gin is now retired, apart from the pro bono hits she does occasionally, she runs a BBQ restaurant called the Pork Pit and has a lover Owen Greyson.  Fletcher has been murdered, her baby sister Bria is a cop and is back in her life not dead as Gin had thought for seventeen years and Gin is fully intent on getting Mab to become dead.  She has been patient, like a spider, and waited years for this moment, but with bounty hunters in town and prices on both her and her sister’s head the time has come to kill Mab.  That is going to be a very difficult job though as Mab is the strongest Fire Elemental in 500 years and Gin doesn’t think she can match Mab with her Stone and Ice Elemental magic.  But Gin has to do this or die trying because she wants to protect those around her that she loves, Owen Greyson and his sister Eva, her foster brother Finnegan Lane, the dwarf sisters Jo-Jo and Sophia Deveraux, the vampire Rosalyn and her lover the giant Xavier.  So Gin plots to finally take down her nemesis Mab to finally take her Spider’s Revenge.

I love this series and this book did not disappoint.  We have waited four books for the showdown between Gin and Mab and it was spectacular.  We also find out a secret about the goth dwarf Sophia in this book and how she got her broken raspy voice.   Although all of the regular characters are there this book tends to focus solely on Gin, it explores her feelings and thoughts and I felt a real connection with her.  We also see how she changes from Gin into the cold hearted Spider.  I love all of the characters in this series there isn’t one where I wish I could change them they are written perfectly.   There is a lot of action in the book as one would expect as it is about an assassin, and whilst Gin has a lover Owen there isn’t any romance and no big sex scenes.  So if you like romance and sex maybe this book isn’t for you.   The big ending could have been the end of the series, and I was wondering what now for Gin?  But we find out in the last few pages what Gin will be up to in the next book By A Thread and I cannot wait.  I truly love Gin Blanco and this series and if you like kick ass heroines who are good with Silverstone knives I would not hesitate in recommending it.  I would like to award Ms Estep and Ms Blanco 5 fangs.