Heart of Venom (Elemental Assassin, #9)

by Jennifer Estep

The hotly anticipated ninth novel in the hugely popular Elemental Assassin series finds Gin Blanco on a dangerous mission to rescue a friend.

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.

• ISBN10: 1451689004
• ISBN13: 9781451689006
• Publish Date: 27 August 2013
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Imprint: Pocket Books
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 384
• Language: English

Reviews

[Cocktails and Books]

This review was originally posted on Cocktails and Books.

[Hixxup]

Ok so this book, was just alright for me. the only good things about it was that Owen and Gin worked out their issues, and you got to know Sophia a little more. And M.M. Monroe put a little hmmm wonder what's going on there into it. But other than that, it was a little dry for me.

[Angie]

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

Heart of Venom is a heart stopper! It was definitely the most disturbing of the books so far. Gin is up against her most demented foe yet. Seriously, this guy is sick. Sophia is kidnapped right in front of Gin by the same man who tortured her many years ago. It's her worst fears realized, so Gin is going to stop at nothing to get her friend back and make sure he never hurts her again.

I found the opening chapters of Heart of Venom to be a bit questionable. Gin is at Jojo's salon with Bria when Sophia runs in clearly injured and frightened. I do not believe for a second that Sophia would have ran home with horrible men following her. There is no way that she would lead them to her sister or anyone else that she cared about. Yes, I believe Sophia would run away from them, but I know she could not think she had a great enough head start to beat them to the house, warn Gin and Jojo, and have them get out in time. There is no way. It felt like this was forced just to amp up the emotions by having Gin witness it and not be able to stop it.

Other than that, Heart of Venom is great. I was disturbed and sickened at times, because what Henley Grimes does to his victims is just way out there. And, of course, his obsession with Sophia is beyond disturbing, too. So while he's not the strongest villain Gin has had to take out, he definitely posed some new obstacles for her.

Heart of Venom ends with another hint at this mysterious M.M. Monroe, but no one can figure out who that might be. This seems to be the new overarching plot, but I expected it to be more developed by now since the series is almost over. I'm just left wondering where this is all headed.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[littleread1]

yay!

[Melanie]

I love this series. I can't get enough of Gin. We get a lot of Sophia and Jo-Jo in this book. We see a lot into Sophia's past with the guy that injured her throat. We also see a lot of Owen and Cooper.