Tuesday, July 16, 2013

By a Thread

Book: By a Thread
Series: Elemental Assassins #6
Author: Jennifer Estep

Review: Gin and Bria decide to take a relaxing vacation in Bria's hometown near Savannah, GA. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned when they learn a powerful vampire and his crew are threatening Bria's best friend. To further complicate matters, Donovan Caine, Gin's ex-lover happens to be Bria's friend's fiance. 

Once again, Michael Weston (oops, I mean Gin Blanco) and the team decide to help Bria's best friend from childhood. She's being threatened by a vampire who wants her beachside restaurant to build a casino. Similar to the other books, Gin decides to kill the big bad with no real plan. Similar to other books, they attend a big party, Gin corners the big bad and realizes she has underestimated her opponent and she barely escapes alive. I will say I liked how she used her elemental power to escape in this book, it was pretty clever. The overall action in the book was enjoyable and I like how Gin doesn't hesitate to kill anyone in her way while she tries to save people. And of course, I love everything relating to Gin and Owen!!

A strong theme in this book was the strained relationship with Gin and Bria. I think Estep wrote the jealously that Gin experienced (in regards to Bria's relationship with her childhood best friend) very well. It reminds someone meeting their best friend from college's best friend from high school-you may be slightly jealous of the memories they created before you knew them, even though it's irrational. What I found odd was Bria's has a hard time accepting Gin for who she is...yet she has no problems with dating Finn. While Finn may not be an assassin, he is essentially Gin's handler and does a ton of shady business deals. He has also helped Gin out on several occasions and killed a lot of people. It just seems like someone trying to be really moral would not be dating someone like him. Finally..Donovan Caine. Ugg. I really didn't like him in the previous books and was not excited to read his name on the back of the book jacket. I was worried Estep might try to create a love triangle with Gin/Owen/Donovan and I'm really glad she didn't go there. 

Overall, enjoyable read. There wasn't too much recap of previous books (yay!) and I'm hoping for more Gin/Owen storylines in the future. It will be interesting to see who the new big bad will be in Ashland now that Mab Monroe is dead and everyone knows that Gin is the Spider. 

Grade: 3.5/5

No comments: