Venom (Elemental Assassin #3)

Venom by Jennifer Estep
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It is a truth universally acknowledged that...

-  Gin Blanco, aka The Spider, professional assassin, always carries at least five silverstone knives on her at all times: two up her sleeves, two down her boots and one in the small of her back;

-  Finnegan Lake drinks a lot of chicory coffee and the supposed caffeine content does not affect him;

-  the symbol for Northern Aggression is a heart with an arrow through it;

-  Mab Monroe's rune is ruby with wavy rays all around;

-  Gin Blanco's eyes are grey whereas Owen Grayson are violet (and by the way, I still have to meet in my life somebody with violet eyes);

You might have guessed from my remarks what kind of problem I had with this book.

If there was ever a GoodReads' contest for Queen of Repetitions 2011, I would vote Estep.

Because she not only recaps events of previous books in the series, she recaps CHAPTERS within the same book. If we took away all the repetitions the book would probably be half its size.

And it is with great chagrin that I say this irritated me and distracted me quite a bit. It feels like like the author suffers from short-term memory loss OR she thinks that it's ME suffering from it.


The plot is good. I enjoyed it quite a bit and that is why I am giving this book 3 stars anyway. The writing is smooth. Characters have become familiar to me, they are well formed and interesting. I liked how she introduced Bria in the story, I liked that she got rid of donovancaine and I give my blessings to Owen Grayson. I WANT to know how the story goes on. But can I take another or multiple books of continuous recappings?

I am baffled: who edited this book?

This could be easily a five star book if not for the fact that my intelligence feels insulted by it.

If you're a lover of UF this is definitely a series I recommend reading. If you can stomach the recappings.




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