Green-Eyed Demon

I don't know why, but I clicked with this series right away, preferring it to other books with tough magically inclined redheads. Maybe it was Giguhl, the mischief demon and Sabina's minion, maybe it was that Sabina was genuinely tough, maybe it was because I loved the idea of her having grew up as a vampire in an, um, less-than-nurturing atmosphere and now having a chance to explore a new side of who she is. Okay, a lot was the demon, but I think that's a common reaction. :)

Seriously, what I've liked and just gets better is that Sabina retains her core personality, assets and flaws, but she also actually learns some things too. Each book has her closer to the idea that she doesn't have to be a loner – that the world seems to want to give her friends and allies and a team – even a good family. (Um, some of that might turn out to be powers greater than herself pulling strings.) I like that the people we care about she is learning to care about them too and that she can draw on that love as a source of power.

Rachel is half-vampire and half-mage. What we discovered in the second book is she is a natural at tapping into her anger and causing damage. What we find out in this book is something readers probably already know if they came this far – that she has a huge capacity to love that she can also tap into in order to heal and that scene is pretty powerful as are the last few scenes.

She makes romantic headway with Adam. I like Adam, but I'm more glad for Sabina's sake than I am Team Sadam – er, no – um, Team Adina? Well, you know.

Book is set in New Orleans – love that, love it, love it! Some new characters are introduced for Sabina to befriend and not befriend. Hey, is she got along with everyone, who would recognize her?

Oh, weird moment. Sabina and Adam threw around a word that I'd only ever heard a derogatory word for physically disabled people. Tossed it around casually. I had to Google and apparently since Pulp Fiction it has a different meaning. I was so glad to know that Jaye Wells was not going all Mel Gibson and her editor didn't stop her. I was glad it was a matter of my lack of attention to Pulp Fiction.

And, with all the cemeteries in N'awlins, I can't say that there are no zombies. There is also a new villain in the wings and he's a biggie!

You know that preview that you probably read at the end of The Mage in Black? Did not occur in the book. There was a line or two, but the author seemed to switch out the significance of a couple characters and went a slightly different way.

So, I loved this one most of all and I really have, to my surprise, come to adore the mage stuff. I want to read more of that – a lot more. Sabina is comfortable in her vampire skin, confident as an assassin, and I just love seeing her explore the other side.

If you have not read the other two, you should do that first – this is a journey. I actually used my Kindle search to great advantage to remind myself of details of the other books when a term or character was mentioned. I think so much would be lost if you jump in here instead of being fulling invested by now and understanding the history.

At the end of Mage in Black I was so eager to read the next book, this one, that the wait seemed endless. Now I have to wait again and that's hard, but the ending was so intense that I probably need recovery time. AND when I got to the end my Kindle helpfully told me there was a short story for pre-order explaining an incident mentioned but not shown in this book – so I suppose I'll have that to bridge the gap.

No real complaints – there were a couple minor editing errors that may or may not be a Kindle edition thing. Nothing major and all I'm feeling is the love and the eagerness for the short story and the next book and more Giguhl/Mr. Giggles/GiGi. I think he needs his own side adventures or something from his point of view.