Spider's Revenge

Actual rating: 3.5 going on 4 I can’t believe it! It looks like this series found an editor at last!! Before I started reading Spider’s Revenge I had promised myself that I would give up on Elemental Assassin if the constant recaps & repetitions were only half as bad as they were in the last instalment. No matter how much I love Gin and the rest of the characters in this series, I just couldn’t stand the repetitive narration and was ready to give up on it all, despite my wanting to know whatever happened next. Well, luckily enough, it seems that someone finally realized the repetitions had to go because Spider’s Revenge is a great improvement on the other instalments. Granted, the narration is still too repetitive but at least I didn’t feel like I was reading the same chapter over and over again, as was the case with previous books. There is less of the “gray on violet” nonsense and I’m very grateful for that. Still, if Estep writes “and then we danced” once more I’ll probably just go down on my knees and scream my head off. As I have said in previous reviews, the strength of this series is the cast of characters. I love Gin and her straight-forwardness. She is unapologetic, has no qualms about who she is, what she does and the lengths she is willing to go to. I find that she’s a bit lacking in the snark department but that’s probably because I keep comparing her to Kate Daniels, the absolutely queen of all things cynical & sarcastic. Still, Gin is a pretty cool character and one of my favourite kick-butt heroines of all times. Actually, she is probably the main reason why I held on to this series despite the poor narrative. Well, her and the rest of the characters, which are all pretty fantastic. The cast of secondary characters for this series keeps growing and I don’t think there is a single one that I don’t like so far. I just love Finn, Owen, the Deveraux sisters, Bria, Eva, Roslynn, Xavier… Even Mab! The plot here is entertaining and fast-paced as it is finally time for the final showdown between Gin & Mab Monroe. The queen bitch suffers a satisfying death but as momentous as this face-off was supposed to be, I was expecting a bit more. More violence, more darkness, more gore… I don’t know, something bigger and meaner and “badder” somehow. That’s probably because to me this series is a bit on the light side compared to other urban fantasy series I have read. The bad guys & girls are sufficiently dangerous and mean but not downright evil evil evil. Then there is also the fact that no matter how badly Gin and the secondary characters are injured, they always survive all the fights they get into. Jo-Jo comes over, does her magic thing and everything gets back to normal. With each new instalment I keep expecting one of the recurring characters to die but they just never do and it’s getting a bit too unrealistic for my taste. Besides, having one the main characters die would spice things up a bit, no matter how heartbreaking it would be. Still, this was an enjoyable read and I was relieved to find most of the repetitions and recaps gone. There is hope for this series yet! Off to get my hands on “By a Thread”!