For A Few Demons More (Rachel Morgan, #5) (Hollows, #5)

by Kim Harrison

Rachel Morgan is back and there are more sexy bounty-hunting witches, cunning demons and vicious vampires than ever before.

For a Few Demons More is the fifth instalment of Kim Harrison’s New York Times bestselling series.

Bargaining with demons has left Rachel Morgan in constant danger of losing her soul.

As if being famous in the underworld – for all the wrong reasons – and sharing her home with a vampire and her jealous girlfriend didn't make her vulnerable enough, one night Rachel finds demons ransacking her home with no fear of sanctified ground. They are searching for something they believe Rachel to possess – a danger that Rachel thought was well hidden and secret.

But when the human morgue starts to fill up with partially-turned lupine women who have been brutally murdered, Rachel realises that someone else knows the Focus still exists and that she may have been betrayed.

• ISBN10: 0007247796
• ISBN13: 9780007247790
• Publish Date: 19 March 2007
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 11 February 2015
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: HarperVoyager
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 528
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.co.uk

Reviews

[Quirky Cat]

For a Few Demons More is the fifth novel in The Hollows series by Kim Harrison. This is arguably also the most emotional novel in the series if you ask me. But I might be slightly biased since this novel ripped my heart out and handed it to me on a silver platter.

Rachel Morgan is one talented witch. Talented at getting herself into trouble, that is. She has gotten on the wrong sides of plenty of supernaturals, including a demon or two. But now, with the city on the verge of an Interland war, Rachel is going to have to make some tough calls.

As you all well know, magic comes with a cost. So do decisions made during wartimes. Every action has a reaction, and that seems to go doubly so for anything Rachel does, for there are many people watching and waiting.

I should probably mention that I’ve already read The Hollows series (Several times), but I recently noticed that I never actually reviewed them. So in preparation for the next Hollows book (so excited!), I’m going to do a reread and review run. So far I’m thrilled with my decision, because I had forgotten how enthralling this series can be!

“Practice makes perfect, I thought smugly, then braced myself. This was going to hurt like hell.”

Be still my heart! I had forgotten how much For a Few Demons More affected me. Don’t get me wrong, this was a beautifully written novel. One of many in the series, if I may say so. But that doesn’t lessen the impact any. In fact, I would argue the opposite is true.

If you’re a fan of series with lots of interspecies conflicts (witch, vampire, pixie, werewolf, etc), then The Hollows is a series worth checking out – assuming you’re not already a fan. In which case, join me in my reread run! I could use the company…and a shoulder to cry on.

Anyway, on to an actual review of this book. I adored For a Few Demons More. This is a novel that forced Rachel out into the open, where she had to make the hard calls on what to do, knowing full well that what she did would impact all of the others in the city. And possibly beyond. No big deal, right?

Seeing Rachel in these situations has always been fascinating. Her thought process is highly unique, and that can be both concerning and entertaining at times. Likewise, I adored seeing the politics in this novel, which there were quite a lot of.

It seemed like every secondary character made an appearance here, and they all wanted something for themselves, or for their kind. Each one carried a choice and a price. It’s a lot to take in. Best of all, having read the rest of the series, I can see how these building blocks fall into place.

Honestly, there’s a lot to love about this book. Beyond the politics and the worldbuilding, there’s a deeply personal story told in this novel in particular. It’s a series of events that put Rachel in…a vulnerable position. But once again, that makes her more human, which is ironic, I know. Kim Harrison did an excellent job setting the scene, as well as all of the chain events that get pushed into motion because of it.

Whew. I knew that this book was coming, and yet it still surprised me! That’s impressive, right? Now I have to decide if I want to dive right into The Outlaw Demon Wails, or if I want to give myself a week or two to recuperate first.

Check out more reviews over at Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

[Chelsea]

Not my favourite in the series but still a solid book. Some of the slower paced plot points from the beginning of the series are finally starting to see some progress. I’m nervous to see what could possibly happen next after the ending of this book but I’m also excited!

I found the major plot in this book only really saw any progress during the second half of the novel. I’m not sure how I was kept entertained during the first half but somehow I was. I also could have used a little more action. There was a lot of investigating in this one and not enough ass kicking for my liking.

We’re starting to see some progress in Rachel’s character and I’m looking forward to seeing how else she progresses!

[celinenyx]

For a Few Demons More is where Ms Harrison really steps up her game. A main character dies, and it is not in vain. The character development in this series is slow and steady, and in this book we see Rachel adjusting her moral compass ever so slightly. Some things happen that will massively change the status quo in the books to come, and I'd praise Ms Harrison for how every book rearranges the relationships between the main characters. Instead of telling the same story over and over as many series do, in the Hollows nothing stays the same, even though subtly.

Deserves five stars for making me cry at the end.

[littleread1]

That is certainly sad, but not as sad as I expected.

[Linda]

This and all my other reviews are originally posted on my blog (un)Conventional Bookviews.

For a Few Demons More starts with Rachel waking up - but not really waking up! She can feel that someone else is inside her head, and she has no idea what to do to get rid of the other person - who has nothing to do in there anyway. As Rachel manages to force that someone out of her head, Ceri arrives to help her, but is terrified when she sees who is there.

This frantic mood continues through most of For a Few Demons More, and little plot-points from prior books are resolved, while seeds for new plots are expertly planted - almost out of sight from the reader. Rachel has finally decided to introduce Trent to Ceri, and it almost ends bad because Trent and Rachel can just never stop judging and harassing each other. Ceri shows both Quen and Trent who is the strongest elf there, though, and I love the way even Trent is a little scared of her.

Still hiding the focus, not knowing who to trust apart from David, Rachel has to solve a very different kind of problem in For a Few Demons More. When Glenn brings her to the morgue to find out if he should open a murder investigation on some weres, Jane Doe's, David has dreams making him think he's killing off his girlfriends. Again, Rachel needs to fight several fights on different fronts at the same time, all the while learning more about the ley-line magic, and how some of the magic she uses is black magic, even if she is using it for good, and she always makes the payment herself. When Rachel can finally get a warrant for Trent - she takes at the worst (or best) possible moment, and as usual, she doesn't really care about the consequences.

In order to keep the focus from the warring were-packs, she has decided that a certain vampire is the best person for the job, and makes sure she has several witnesses for the delivery. Of course, every single thing that can go wrong goes wrong, and the ending is both madenning, confusing, scary and done in a way that it's almost impossible to see where Rachel and Ivy will be able to go from here. And how will Rachel be able to come to terms with the different things she's lost? I am also extremely curious about Newt, and that is totally Jaclyn's fault - because of her Sidekick Saturday post about a strange sidekick I started reading this series...

Jenks's cat Rex padded past me, curiosity doing tis best to fulfill its promise.

Sometimes I felt as if they thought I couldn't hear at all just because I couldn't hear a pixy belch across the graveyard. Yeah, they'd had a contest one night. Jenks won.

Good Lord, I thought, squinting at the bright glare of late-July morning. No wonder I slept through this. It was noisy with shrieking birds, and already hot. If I had known I was going out, I would have put on shorts.

Pixies squealed from the rafters, and Trent and Quen warily watched them. I plucked at my salt-stained shirt and tried to find an air of nonchalance as I prepared to introduce His Most Holy Pain in the Ass to Miss Elf Princess.

[tellemonstar]

Cross-posted at Book Reviews With The Blogmonstar

Rachel has to deal with the aftermath of hiding the ancient Were relic in For A Few Demons More.

David features quite a bit in this one, after discovering that something awful has been happening to some of the women he has recently dated. He thinks he might have killed them but he can’t remember doing so. Since he is holding the Were artifact for Rachel she suspects, correctly, that it might have something to do with the artifact.

This one also has some other elements in it, to make the storyline a pretty interesting one. For starters we meet Lee (Stanley) Saladan, a fairly powerful witch who wants to take over Trent’s territory as payback for Trent taking over part of what he deemsa as his territory. Piscary also shows up in this one, and he’s just as much of a jerk as he has been in the past. Also there is the (I think) quite nice relationship between Kisten and Rachel.

The main issue in For A Few Demons More is really – who is the bad guy? Yes, Trent sells Brimstone and isn’t afraid to kill people who get in his way or who may otherwise make his business/life difficult, but he doesn’t let innocent bystanders get injured as a general rule. (Except for the Weres in this book). Lee however, is fully prepared to blow up an entire boat of people, most of whom are reasonably innocent, just to take out Trent and Rachel.

The last third of the book is pretty action-packed and fast paced, which seems to be the trend with this series. The last third or quarter of the book is the most exciting part, with the occasional shorter exciting parts scattered a little through the first parts.

I liked the ending of this one. Perhaps not Rachel’s decision making skills, but I will give her the fact that she thought her friends were no longer alive to ask for advice. However, the way Kim Harrison dealt with the ending was well done, I thought, although quite sad in parts.

[ibeforem]

Unfortunately, I ruined part of this for myself by reading about the next book on Amazon. So if you don’t want to know what happens with Rachel and Kisten, don’t do that! Overall, this was a solid entry in a series I love, though I don’t think it was quite as good as the last one. There are a lot of surprises here, the first one coming immediately when Rachel wakes up in the process of being possessed by a demon… and it isn’t Al for once. The characters continue to show growth, but I have to say that I was really disappointed in Trent. I was just getting used to thinking about him being a basically decent guy under the whole “running a drug cartel” thing when it turns out he’s much, much worse than we thought. When this book ends, there’s a fair amount of stuff that remains to be explained. There’s been a big change in Rachel’s world, and I can’t wait to see how things shake out.