Book Review: By A Thread by Jennifer Estep

2Title: By A Thread
Series: Elemental Assassin, Book 6
Author: Jennifer Estep
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Sensuality Rating: Steamy
Source: bought
Published: February 2012 by Pocket

When killing people is your job, there’s no such thing as a vacation.

Then again, how often does an assassin live long enough to enjoy her retirement? In this line of work, you either get lucky or you get dead. And since I destroyed my nemesis Mab Monroe a few weeks ago, all of Ashland’s lowlifes are gunning to make a name for themselves by taking out the lethal Spider—me, Gin Blanco. So I’m leaving behind my beloved barbecue joint and heading south with my baby sister, Bria, to cool my heels in a swanky beach town. Call it a weekend of fun in the sun.

But when a powerful vampire with deadly elemental magic threatens an old friend of Bria’s, it looks like I’ll have to dig my silverstone knives out of my suitcase after all. Complicating matters further is the reappearance of Detective Donovan Caine, my old lover. But Donovan is the least of my problems. Because this time, the danger is hot on my trail, and not even my elemental Ice and Stone magic may be enough to save me from getting buried in the sand—permanently.

Why I Read this Book: This series is on my auto-buy/auto-read list. Seriously, I’ve been pre-ordering these books for a while now. I have loved this series since the first book.

What I Liked: Just as with its predecessors, By A Thread was full of action and had me turning page after page. It was pretty much non-stop action from the start. And just when I was worried about Mab no longer being the villain in this series, the author brings a whole new level of ‘bad guy’ to Gin's world. Randall was definitely a power-hungry kind of villain that matched, maybe even surpassed, Mab.

I thoroughly enjoyed how the author cleverly intertwined the storyline with the addition of Callie’s character, Bria’s BFF from her hometown. And though I could have slapped Bria for the way she treated Gin in the beginning of By A Thread, it made for great development between the two sisters.

I absolutely loved that Donovan was brought back into the story. I got the closure I needed and can finally move on. He was holding me back, in terms of being a love interest, but that got solved mighty quickly in By A Thread.

And the author does a good job of answering the questions that pop up in my head as I'm reading.

What I Didn’t Like: Nothing.

Memorable Moment:

“You’re mine,” Owen said in a fierce whisper, the heat in his eyes as bright as the scorching sun. “Not his. Mine. Only mine. Always mine.”

Overall Impression: The Elemental Assassin series is one that keeps going strong. There is no slowing down for Jennifer Estep and I can't wait to read more about Gin and the crew in this amazing urban fantasy world.

Brianna’s Rating: