Archive for March, 2010
Fantasy Book Review – Spider’s Bite by Jennifer Estep
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Spider’s Bite, by Jennifer Estep, tells the story of Gin, a top assassin in a Southern town run by Elementals who rule with their magic. Gin works with Fletcher, her handler and mentor, at a barbeque restaurant called The Pork Pit. When he’s not serving barbeque, Fletcher is handing out jobs for Gin, nicknamed The Spider, to perform. In addition to being the best-trained assassin east of the Mississippi, she’s also a Stone elemental, which gives her the ability to manipulate and manage stone – a good skill to have in your back pocket when you’re operating in a world populated by Fire, Ice and Air elementals.
Fletcher has just handed Gin a new job: taking out an embezzler for a nice $5 million dollar payday. Gin is nervous about this “easy” job because quite frankly, it’s just too easy. However the tidy fee associated with this job would guarantee her ability to get out of the killing business for good. But Gin soon finds out that there’s truth in the statement “if it’s too good to be true” when she ends up targeted by another assassin during the commission of this job.
Heading back to the safety of Fletcher and the Pit, she comes upon a horrific discovery: the tortured body of Fletcher. Clearly someone wants Gin very badly and they killed Fletcher trying to find her. Now Gin has a new mission – find and avenge the death of her handler.
Teaming up with Fletcher’s son they proceed to find out who killed Fletcher and why Gin was set up to take the fall for his murder. Initially pursued by smoking hot police detective, Donovan Caine, Gin ends up surprising him by making a unique proposition – work with them to find the people who set her up and they’ll help him find out who’s dirty in his department. Unfortunately, Donovan has personal reasons to despise Gin; this coupled with his attraction to her serves to notch up the tension between the two of them even more.
With Spider’s Bite, the first book in the new Elemental Assassin’s series, Jennifer Estep has given us a story of action, mystery and complicated attraction as the team of three works to avenge Fletcher’s death and unravel the conspiracy. I love urban fantasy books with strong, smart women who protect the ones they care about and at the same time give the bad guys exactly what they deserve – a full measure of revenge with all the venom contained in a spider’s bite.
Fantasy Book Review – Shadow Blade by Seressia Glass
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Seressia Glass’ new novel, Shadow Blade, tells the story of a young woman, Kira Solomon, who is an elite warrior, working diligently to keep the balance between Light and Shadow. The story takes place in Atlanta with the normal, human world mixing in with a parallel world of magic and ancient rituals. Kira works for the Gilead Commission as a Shadowchaser – someone who ensures that the world is protected from the worst of the Shadow creatures who want to bring chaos into our reality.
The fun begins when Kira is introduced to a mysterious dagger, brought to her by her friend, Bernie Comstock. He wants her to touch it and tell him its story. Kira always wears gloves when she does this because she can’t touch an object without seeing everything that previously touched it (a real problem when trying to eat meat – ugh!). When she touches people, it just drains the energy out of them, leaving them in a coma. However, since she wants to help her friend she takes her gloves off and touches the dagger, seeing an ancient world, ancient and modern battles and lots and lots of magic. What’s shocking is that all of her visions feature the same tall, fierce warrior. It’s clear that a single man has carried this dagger for the last four thousand years. By the time Kira jerks her hands away from the dagger she realizes that this mysterious stranger clearly wants it back.
After her friend Bernie meets a fatal end Kira goes all out to avenge his death. It’s not helping that the four-thousand year old warrior, Khefar, has caught up to her and is only focused on getting his magical knife back. Apparently, this knife can undo all of creation if it falls in the wrong hands, such as Shadow hands. Kira simply wants him out of her way since she’s got work to do. That is, until he reaches out and grabs her arm – and nothing happens! He’s the first person to touch her in years that isn’t affected by her power. The gods must like her since the first person to be able to touch her and survive is a tall, muscled, gorgeous Nubian warrior. We should all be so lucky . . .
Kira and Khefar end up working together to find out who killed Bernie and to protect the dagger from the Shadow forces. Kira has to learn to trust this man who has inserted himself into her life while Khefar needs to see Kira as a partner, not just a soldier in his army who he orders around. The attraction between the two of them helps with this effort – it’s hard to kiss someone if you think of them as a soldier in your army!
With Shadow Blade, Seressia Glass, a Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award winner, has written an urban fantasy tale with all the elements that I like in a good story: magic, deception, redemption, romance and victory – a solid formula for a very entertaining read. I’m certainly looking forward to the next installment in the adventures of Kira and Khefar.
