Poison Promise (Elemental Assassin, #11)

by Jennifer Estep

Gin Blanco is hard-nosed, sexy, and lethal. Nicknamed "The Spider," she's a stone elemental assassin who brings her unique mix of magic and tact to every assignment, no matter the target. There's a new drug on the streets of Ashland, and its name "Burn" sums up the potent effect it has on its users. When one of her restaurant employees is threatened by dealers of the drug, Gin steps in to set things straight...

• ISBN10: 1476771502
• ISBN13: 9781476771502
• Publish Date: 22 July 2014
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 416
• Language: English

Reviews

[Cocktails and Books]

This review was originally posted on Cocktails and Books.

[littleread1]

Is it weird to say this book is my favorite of the series, however with where it ended I am not sure if I will continue? It almost feels like a repeat is brewing. But the fact that Gin owned who she was in this, more so than any other, just flipping made my day. Grins all around.

[Angie]

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

It's about freaking time! But what is a filler book doing so late in the series?! Poison Promise is a whole lot of filler. I liked it, but I felt myself getting impatient. As always, it opens up with Gin fending off a potential attacker while innocently going about her business. Then she learns that this attacker is part of something larger, and being the nosy assassin that she is, she has to go after the boss. This time, she's after the local drug lord who's pushing some new drug infused with Elemental magic. But it becomes personal when she learns her sister is the cop on the case, and she'll stop at anything to crack it.

It's a bit late to be introducing even more characters, but that's exactly what Poison Promise does. One of Gin's waitresses is the person in trouble, being harassed by her ex-boyfriend, who is one of the distributors of this new, super drug. Then there's her uncle, who also works for the drug lord but is also trying to protect her. And of course, there's the big man himself, Benson. All of these people come out of nowhere, Gin deals with them like she always does, and then we finally meet someone important: M.M. Monroe. This is who I've been waiting for! They actually appear early on with a flashing, neon sign, and yet it's not until the second to last chapter that they finally come to the forefront. Turns out all of these new characters were just a way to get to them, and will serve no other purpose. Totally unnecessary.

Poison Promise also introduces some new elemental abilities. We finally meet someone who has Acid as their element, which is apparently an offshoot of Fire. It's definitely an interesting ability to be able to leak acid from your finger tips, but it seems a bit of a stretch to be related to fire. The other offshoot elements make sense; this one, not so much. Gin's own powers are also explored more, and I also found those to be a bit unbelievable. It's like the author wanted to show us something new that Gin can do, but ran out of logical ideas. Oh, and we finally get to see a vampire feed off of emotions. It's pretty disturbing, but if you think about it too much, the end result also makes no sense. I think at this point in the series, any additional world building is extraneous.

In the end, I did enjoy Poison Promise, but I've reached the point in the series where I'm getting impatient and nitpicky. I've been waiting for Gin to face M.M. Monroe for three books; I didn't need all of this randomness to slog through. I was also kind of hoping that something from The Spider would come up, so that one would feel less like disconnected, but I was let down in that regard, too. I guess I just want to get to the final showdown already!

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.