Liviania’s review of Spider’s Bite (Elemental Assassin, Book 1) by Jennifer Estep
Urban fantasy released by Pocket 26 Jan 2010

I love Jennifer Estep’s Bigtime series.  They’re funny and sweet romances.  Then she went and wrote a more traditional urban fantasy series, starring an assassin – one of my favorite character types.  I couldn’t resist buying Spider’s Bite.  I’m glad I didn’t, because Estep maintained her charm while writing something completely different.

Gin Blanco is just about ready to retire.  She’s young, but being an assassin pays well.  Unfortunately, her most recent client double-crosses her and kills her mentor/foster father Fletcher.  He was also the middleman, and Gin doesn’t know exactly who hired her.  But she’s going to find out, and then she’s going to kill him or her.  It’s an action-packed opening and the rest of Spider’s Bite lives up to that promise.

I liked that Estep doesn’t try to soften Gin.  She isn’t angsty or torn about her job.  She kills people, she’s good at it, end of story.  In fact, she’ll do it pro bono sometimes.  Gin doesn’t like child rapists, and I assume most readers don’t either.  Gin is more worried about her magic powers.  She doesn’t like using them much, since doing so could attract the city’s movers and shakers, which is what got the rest of her family killed (probably).

Estep also surrounds Gin with interesting characters.  There are the dwarf sisters who help her  with crime scene clean up and healing.  There’s the vampiric club owner, willing to help Gin out since she took care of a problem for her.  There’s her foster brother Finn, the son of an assassin and brother to an assassin who logically became a banker.  While he’s a white collar criminal, he’s still good as back-up.  There’s also Donovan Caine, the straightest cop in the city, who is exactly the cop Gin needs to solve Fletcher’s murder.  The Dating Catwoman scenario always gets me.

If you’re a fan of the Bigtime series, you might not like the Elemental Assassin series.  It’s much darker and less romantic.  Conversely, it’s just as well-written and stands out from the urban fantasy crowd.  I finished Spider’s Bite quickly and moved immediately to Web of Lies.  The overarching plot, the search for the killer of Gin’s family, is just as compelling as the self-contained plots within the novels.

Grade: B+

Summary:
My name is Gin, and I kill people.

They call me the Spi­der. I’m the most feared assas­sin in the South—when I’m not busy at the Pork Pit cook­ing up the best bar­be­cue in Ash­land. As a Stone ele­men­tal, I can hear every­thing from the whis­pers of the gravel beneath my feet to the vibra­tions of the soar­ing Appalachian Moun­tains above me. My Ice magic also comes in handy for mak­ing the occa­sional knife. But I don’t use my pow­ers on the job unless I absolutely have to. Call it pro­fes­sional pride.

Now that a ruth­less Air ele­men­tal has double-crossed me and killed my han­dler, I’m out for revenge. And I’ll exter­mi­nate any­one who gets in my way—good or bad. I may look hot, but I’m still one of the bad guys. Which is why I’m in trou­ble, since irre­sistibly rugged Detec­tive Dono­van Caine has agreed to help me. The last thing this cold­hearted killer needs when I’m bat­tling a magic more pow­er­ful than my own is a sexy dis­trac­tion … espe­cially when Dono­van wants me dead just as much as the enemy.

Read an excerpt here.