Black Magic Sanction by Kim Harrison

Black Magic Sanction (Hollows, #8) (Rachel Morgan, #8)

by Kim Harrison

The eight stirring instalment of the urban fantasy-thriller series starring Rachel Morgan. A pacey and addictive novel of sexy bounty-hunting witches, cunning demons and vicious vampires.

Rachel Morgan has fought and hunted vampires, werewolves, banshees, demons, and other supernatural dangers as both witch and bounty hunter – and lived to tell the tale. But she’s never faced off against her own kind… until now.

Denounced and shunned for dealing with demons and black magic, Rachel’s best hope is life imprisonment – the worst, a forced lobotomy and genetic slavery. Only her enemies are strong enough to help her win her freedom, but trust comes hard when it hinges on the unscrupulous tycoon Trent Kalamack, the demon Algaliarept, and an ex-boyfriend turned theif. It takes a witch to catch a witch, but survival bears a heavy price.

Reviewed by tellemonstar on

4 of 5 stars

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Cross-posted at Book Reviews With the Blogmonstar

A lot of stuff goes down in Black Magic Sanction. It also has one of the saddest moments in the entire series, and some fantastic moments with Al and Rachel.

So Rachel got shunned for using black magic in to try and sort out the Banshee situation, and deal with Al in the previous books. Although technically, only some of what she did could really be classed as ‘black’ – some of it was fairly standard witchy stuff, but because it was bound by blood that made it black magic. Or something. Some of the semantics were a bit confused – even by the ethical standards witches.

Nick, the idiot, is back in Black Magic Sanction and no-one particularly likes it. Even Rachel has no good feelings towards him, which I think is a good thing, since she has a tendency to pick guys that are all wrong for her. Also, it will come as no surprise to anyone who has read the previous books that he tries to screw everyone over (repeatedly) throughout this novel as well. Thankfully, Jenks’ son comes back home in this one though, because even he can see Nick for what he really is.

Pierce is starting to get really annoying – especially since he will quite happily use ‘proper’ black magic without trying to figure out if there was another way to handle the situation. Also his whole, “I’m the big strong man and so I will keep you from harm” schtick is getting old. I mean, I understand that he is 100 years plus, but he needs to at least let Rachel know if he is going to do something different, because he is starting to screw things up for her.

The first 100 or so pages of Black Magic Sanction are all pretty action-filled, which is good because it’s a long one. The sad moments is not really something I can tell you without spoiling it, but it is something that the previous few books have been preparing us for. That whole section of the book gets a one full star because it was really well done.

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  • Started reading
  • 26 June, 2013: Finished reading
  • 26 June, 2013: Reviewed