Jennifer Estep: Tangled Threads

This is the fourth book in Jennifer Estep's Elemental Assassin series and while Estept does take time each book to slightly recap what has happened before, in order to truly appreciate this  book and series you need to read the first three books Spider's Bite, Web of Lies and Venom.

Gin Blanco is back in Jennifer Estep's Elemental Assassin series, and this time Gin is not the only assassin in town:

Gin tried to retire from assassin wet work, but there just seem to be too many people that need to be killed these days. Now Gin is setting her own targets, which means anyone who works for Mab Monroe better watch their back, the Spider is back and making no secret about it. Gin has a need for revenge for what Mab did to her family and with her sister Bria alive and back in town, Gin has more to fight for than ever. But taking about Mab was never going to be easy, she has power, money and influences and she has used them all to hire one of the most dangerous assassins, with a 100% success rate, LaFleur. It's a show down of assassin vs assassin and no one knows who is going to win this epic fight.

I love this series and I love Gin. Gin is really one of my favorite female heroines out there. I really enjoy that in each book Gin grows a little bit, whether it is her powers or her relationships (and this book it is a big amount of both). I like that Estep is not afraid to have Gin change and develop into a new person the more life challenges throw at her. I think this is the first book where we get to see Gin scared. She really does not know if she is going to come out the winner in this fight. I'm also impressed with the amount of damage that Estep allows Gin to take on, both mentally and physically. I think there will come a time when JoJo will not be able to heal Gin fully and it will be interesting to see how Gin copes with an injury or weakness.

I really liked the assassin vs assassin aspect in this book and I think one of the best sub-plots so far with this series. The action scenes and the fact that Gin doesn't know if she is going to survive, really added to the suspense aspect of this book. LaFleur's electricity element and overall sadism would be a hard match for anyone even Mab. I realize that the assassin story has now been done, but it would be interesting to know who else is out there who could not only be a threat to Gin but maybe allies as well.

The one criticism I have for Estep is that we are now on to the fourth book within this series and I do not think that someone is going to be picking up this series without reading the first three. Therefore, I do not think that she needs to recap what has happened in previous books. It seemed like every chapter was reiterating information that the reader already knew either about Gin's past or what happened in previous books. It got to the point where all the retelling of information just felt like filler in the book. I hope this has stopped in future books in this series, as it got kind of annoying by the end of the book. Even though I have not read the books back to back I still remember what has happened previously.

I'm glad that Estep added some new challenges in this novel for Gin to overcome, I also really love Gin, I cannot find many faults in her. I am actually really excited about getting my hands on the 5th book in this series as it looks like that is when Gin will finally take on Mad Monroe, and that has been 4 books in the making. Oh the anticipation :)

Enjoy!!!

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