A quick warning: Spoilers for previous novels abound in this review! If you're not caught up, you might want to skip down to the giveaway. :)
Gin's in a very different position in SPIDER'S TRAP: she's spent much of the series hunting Monroes and dodging assassins and now she's the queen of Ashland's underworld. "Reluctant" doesn't even begin to describe how she feels about it but her feelings become moot when someone plants a bomb on her friend Phillip's boat while she's on board for a meeting. The would-be assassin's magic is unlike anything Gin has ever faced, and she can help but think it's related to her past, though she can't quite put her finger on it. Nonetheless, Gin being Gin, she goes into full seek-and-destroy mode, to ensure the safety of her loved ones.
The books in the Elemental Assassin have a definite structure to them: Gin meets threat, Gin spends novel trying to defeat threat (usually with at least one attempt that goes awry - at great cost to her person), Gin survives (again, often at great cost to her person). Within this structure, there's usually a lot of nice personal and thoughtful moments, particularly in the past couple novels, where Gin has struggled with being "out" as The Spider and how that affects the people she cares about. In SPIDER'S TRAP, Gin's reflections go in a different direction, taking us back to her early days with Fletcher, which is one of the reasons I really enjoyed this novel. Every few books, we get to dip our toes into Gin's early days -- you can't quite call it an idyllic childhood, can you? -- and these are my favourite stories because we see how Gin became the woman she is. And we get to learn about Fletcher, who I'm very attached to despite the fact that he's been dead for pretty much the entire series. Gin's formative years and her time with Fletcher are always fascinating and SPIDER'S TRAP is no exception. Estep has given us another peek at Gin's younger self, and of Fletcher in his prime, and I loved it. (As an aside, I would happily read a prequel series just about Fletcher with or without teenaged Gin and Flynn.) Without going too far into spoiler territory, I think I can safely say that it was quite fun to have Gin be something of a secondary player in some of the reminiscences. I'm afraid to be less cryptic, so you'll just have to read through the novel to really get what I mean by that!
I have such big love for SPIDER'S TRAP that I could go on and on but I'm very concerned that I'll inadvertently ruin some of the surprises so I think I'll have to sign off now. ;) I'll close by saying that, as ever, Estep has written a fast-paced, action-filled novel that also manages to deliver great character development and pithy dialogue. It's no mean feat to keep a series interesting once it's hit double digits but she's done a fine job. I'm always eager to read the next Elemental Assassin book and SPIDER'S TRAP has truly delivered. It's exciting, satisfying, and will have you hooked from the opening scene. I dare you to read the excerpt linked below and not run to the bookstore to get your own copy!
There is a tour-wide giveaway with different prizes depending on region. Make sure you check the Raffelcopter for details. The prizes:
1 winner will receive an entire print set of Jennifer’s Elemental Assassin series - all 13 books! (US/Canada only)
10 winners will receive one copy of SPIDER’S TRAP (US/Canada only)
1 winner will receive a $25 Amazon gift card (this is open internationally!)
I own 3 or 4 books from this series. I'd love to actually own the complete set. I'd donate all the doubles to my local library to put into circulation.
ReplyDeleteHi - It sounds like this is a pretty popular series. I had read another series some time ago in which the later books would act as spoilers for the first few. These types of series definitely need to be read in order. :)
ReplyDelete@dino0726 from
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