Spider's Bite (Elemental Assassin, #1)

by Jennifer Estep

[Angie]

Spider's Bite has one of the best opening chapters I have read. As soon as I finished it, I knew this was going to be my kind of book! We meet our heroine, Gin, while she's in an asylum where the doctor is trying to convince her that she is not the renowned assassin, the Spider. Of course, Gin is the assassin, and the doctor is her next target. Upon completion of her current mission, Gin is given another one which gives her a lot more problems than she bargained for.

I only had two issues with Spider's Bite, but I decided to round up instead of down since neither affected my enjoyment that much. The first was some repetition. Whenever Gin gets ready to go out, she has to tell us where her five knives go. They always go in the same place, but for some reason she has to tell us every single time. She also constantly tells us that runes are important for elementals and other magic users every time runes are brought up. I think we got it the first time, Gin.

The second was that I found the world building a bit questionable. I had lots of questions, but since this is the first book, I was sure they'd get answered later (most were in the next book). Plus none of my questions had anything to do with the current plot, just general questions about the different magical creatures. But I also found some of the elemental abilities to be quite far fetched. Air users can instantly heal wounds? Stone users can make their skin tough as stone? Ice users can create ice out of nothing? Really? I think elementals are really awesome, but they seemed too all-powerful for my liking.

Now for what I absolutely loved: the sexual tension! It's not a romance...yet, but holy crap! The tension! At the beginning of Spider's Bite we learn that Gin has a bit of a crush on Detective Donovan Caine. Well, crush may be an understatement. She has some quite vivid fantasies about him. Then when some evil elemental is after the good detective, Gin rescues him, and sees that perhaps he's interested in her, too. There's one scene where I swear they were five seconds from getting it on in public! Dang! Then their sexual tension turns into regular tension and it's like...nooo! But dang...those two...I need more Gin and Donovan!

Spider's Bite was a lot of fun. It's exciting and sexy, and just an all around a good time. I really like Gin. She may be a murderer for hire, but she still has heart. The plot was fast paced and engaging, and while it wrapped up neatly, the ending still had a bit of a shock.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.