Heart of Venom

Heart of Venom is the latest release in the Elemental Assassin series from author Jennifer Estep. The publisher is Pocket Books and the release date is August 27, 2013. From the back cover.~

When I say you’re a dead man, take that literally.

To me, killing people is like a day at the salon: cut and dry. Well, more like rinse and repeat when you moonlight as the assassin the Spider. But my last spa day ended redder than my freshly painted nails after a twisted Fire elemental and his goons kidnapped my close friend Sophia Deveraux and nearly killed her sister Jo-Jo in the process. 

Up Ashland’s most dangerous mountains, and deep into the heart of its blackest woods—I’ll track these thugs no matter where they take Sophia. It doesn’t matter what kinds of elemental magic they try to throw at me, my Ice and Stone powers can take the heat and then some. I will get Sophia back, over their dead bodies. 

Because anybody that hurts Gin Blanco’s family becomes a body.

I'm a huge fan of the Elemental Assassin series from Jennifer Estep and I was super excited to be approved for a review copy thanks to the publisher through Edelweiss. Heart of Venom was a wild ride from start to finish and absolutely restored my faith in one of the characters I had begun to doubt over the last couple of books.

I love Gin Blanco and all of her friends and family. Gin loves to show her family and friends how much she cares for them by feeding them and protecting them. When Sophia Deveraux is kidnapped by her tormentor from years ago, and Jo-Jo is nearly killed, Gin decides to do what she does best. Rescue Sophia and kill the bad guy. Luckily she has Bria, Finn, Warren Fox, and Owen in her corner. I won't lie, I've been mad at Owen for the last 2 books. I could tell he knew he was messing up, but kept at it and in the process hurt Gin. He was going to have to do some pretty amazing begging to get back into my good book. Luckily for all of Gin Blanco's fans, Owen figured out what really matters in this book and finally stepped up and became the man we knew he was from the beginning.

Harley Grimes is pure evil. Not only is he evil, his sister is too and gets off on hurting people, and not in a good way. Gin has her work cut out for her in her latest rescue mission and I loved how her friends worked with her to make it work. Not that everything ever goes as planned with Gin and her crew. Sometimes their re-grouped plan seems to be the best plan of all.

I have to say one of my favorite parts of this book was learning more about Sophia. I've always wanted to know more about her and why she helps Gin now and Fletcher before her get rid of bodies. I found myself loving Sophia more with each reveal of her past and will admit I got choked up a few times as well.

I'm already counting down to the release of The Spider, which will be the next book in the series. I can't wait to learn even more about how Gin became the infamous Spider.

Amazon buy links: Print or Kindle