Review: Spider’s Revenge (Elemental Assassin #5), by Jennifer Estep

Publisher: Pocket
Release Date: September 27, 2011
Format: Paperback
Pages: 400
Source: Library Borrow
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Review Date: August 21, 2013
Rating: 4 bookmarks 

Synopsis: Old habits die hard. And I plan on mur­der­ing some­one before the night is through.

Killing used to be my reg­u­lar gig, after all. Gin Blanco, aka the Spi­der, assassin-for-hire. And I was very good at it. Now, I’m ready to make the one hit that truly mat­ters: Mab Mon­roe, the dan­ger­ous Fire ele­men­tal who mur­dered my fam­ily when I was thir­teen. 

Oh, I don’t think the mis­sion will be easy, but turns out it’s a bit more prob­lem­atic than expected. The bitch knows I’m com­ing for her. So now I’m up against the army of lethal bounty hunters she hired to track me down. She also put a price on my baby sister’s head. Keep­ing Bria safe is my first pri­or­ity. Tak­ing Mab out is a close sec­ond. 

Good thing I’ve got my pow­er­ful Stone and Ice magic — and my irre­sistible lover Owen Grayson — to watch my back. This bat­tle has been years in the mak­ing, and there’s a chance I won’t sur­vive. But if I’m going down, then Mab’s com­ing with me...no mat­ter what I have to do to make that happen.

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Ding dong the witch is dead!!! Finally!! I'm so happy this story arc is over!  Don't get me wrong, while I've been enjoying this series, I was starting to wonder exactly how long the whole evil Mab Monroe needs to die arc was going to go.  Semi-retired Gin is back again in the fifth installment of the Elemental Assassin series and as expected she is kicking but and taking names.  Finally Gin has decided that it's time to slay the dragon, sort of speak. She feels that Bria and the rest of her adopted family are in danger because of her never-ending vendetta against Mab and her lackeys.

For those who have been reading along know that Mab murdered Gin and Bria's mother and baby sister, For decades Gin thought Bria was dead as well, but recently they found each other and Gin will stop at nothing to get revenge against Mab, and the only way to do that is to kill her.

The secondary characters were just as present in this book as they were in the past books if not even more.  Owen, Finn, Bria, Xavier, Roslyn, and the Deveraux sisters all add a lot of depth to the story. They allow us to see Gin interact as more than just a stone cold killer.

My one complaint about this book was the constant rehashing of the previous plot lines for the first 100 pages or so.  There were certain things that were brought up again, and again, and again. Seriously, we've been reading all of the books, we know, we understand what's going on! Promise!  But, on the plus side, once we got past that 100-120 page mark, the repetition wasn't as bad. 

Overall, I enjoyed it.  I like that Mab is finally dead, I like Gin and Owen together, I like Bria and Finn together.  I loved the ending, especially the last sentence of the book.   I would give this 3.5, but since I only use whole numbers, I've rounded up to 4.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes:

“I’m the Spider, bitch—I’m the best there is.” 
“My name is Gin, and I kill people."

Happy Reading,
~Tamara

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