Tangled Threads

Tangled Threads by Jennifer Estep
4th book in the Elemental Assassin series. Urban fantasy. Best read as part of the series.

Gin is the target of a new assassin in town. She must juggle the threat while protecting Bria, Finn, Owen and the rest of her collected family. Mab Monroe still wants the Spider dead.

Fight of good over evil? Giants, desperation, beatings, freedom and killings. Its a complex world where Gin fights good, while being kinda bad.
I mostly listened to the audio version. I got lost a couple of times because of the dream sequences which in the print version are shown in italics. The repetition of background info is a bit tedious.
Overall a good continuation of the fantasy series.

3.25 girlfight Stars

My enjoyment of this book increase by about 25% from the rest of the series. Reason 1 for that is that I stopped listening to the audio for this. Its not that the narrator is bad, she is actually pretty okay. But there is a ton of repetition EVERYWHERE and since Im reading this I can eyeskim most of the rehashes and recaps of every little thing. It feels like there is about 25-30 unnecessary pages of the stuff.

The second reason is Owen. I like him as the love interest. He is new to dating an assassin, but I think he is doing a pretty good job of it.

*** What was wrong with giving Gin a key?” he rumbled. “It’s not like I could keep her out of the house, even if I wanted to. I thought a key would make things easier, make her feel like she was really welcome here. This is the first time that I’ve dated an assassin. I don’t want to piss her off ***

There relationship jumped kind of fast and I maybe would have liked a little more build up to it.but still Owen is a good guy and I like their dynamic.

The third reason I liked this a little more was the female assassin that has come to town to kill The Spider or Gin or both. I love a good girlfight.

There are still some of the same pitfalls in this that there have been in the other books of the series. Mainly an overabundance of recaps and rehashes are the worst offenders. The other thing I wish Estep would move away from is using Rape as the main fear and plot driver. Seriously does every single bad guy have to want to rape Gin, her sister or some other hapless female in the story. There are other ways to create tension and fear and Id really like it if Estep explored some of those. Ive really lost count as to how many giants, dwarves and vampires just want to run around raping every female character in the book.

The final show down with the assassin was pretty cool but these are starting to feel a little formula driven.

I know there is a better story in there Im just waiting to get to it.

Ok as I am sure you can tell by now I am a huge Gin Blanco fan and not afraid to admit how much I love this character. I think this series just gets better and better and makes me love her and the author even more. We pick up on this series with Gin still trying to plot to take out Mab but with her being in for a little surprise in the form of Elektra. I loved seeing another awesome assassin added to the mix and the fact that she was also kick ass too and had such a cool power. It was great watching Gin plot out how she was going to take her down in true Gin fashion.

Oh I am loving Owen more and more as this series continues. I feel like this book was really a turning point for Gin and Owen and they are really growing into an awesome power couple. I love that Owen is all about loving her for who she is with her flaws and all and not trying to make her more than what she presents herself as. He really is in this for the long haul and really care for Gin and puts it out there for all to see. He really is so much better than Caine ever was. I think Gin really has found a winner with this one and needs to make sure she keeps him around.

Overall the action was top notch in this one as always.The cool showdown that takes place between Gin and Elektra was like something out of an action movie and I loved every minute of it. The ladies put on a really awesome show and it was so worth it to see everything that lead up to it. I also have to say that the author creates such mouth watering food in these books that always leaves me hungry after reading about them. She has such a true gritty heroine in Gin Blanco and that is one of the main reasons that I love this series and can’t wait to get to the next installment of the series. I am sure it will be just as spectacular as this one was. I highly recommend this to the others that love a kick butt heroine and that just love this series just as much as I do. I swear everyone needs more Gin in their life.

I’ve been reading the books in this series back to back and up until this book I’ve loved them and kept downloading them one after another on my Kindle. Before I downloaded this book I read a review of someone saying they loved this series but hated this book so much for its repetitive writing that she stopped reading it. I loved the previous books so much I took no notice and downloaded this book regardless. I got up to 47% of this book and literally almost stopped reading it. I felt like I’ve read almost half of the book already in the previous books and I found myself flicking past pages to get to the story and I’m so happy I did because I loved the other 50% of it but just disappointed it took so long. Now I want to download the next book and am wondering if I have to skip past another 47% of the exact same things to get to the story.

This is the 4th in the elemental assasin series. Gin Blanco, aka the Spider (as she reminds rather too often) is getting ever closer to her arch nemesis Mab Monroe. Start with Spiders Bite, then Web of Lies then Venom. After polishing off various associates of Mab’s in previous books, most notably Elliot Slater, Mab has hired another assesin to take Gin out. There is a cat and mouse chase as the two female assasins challenge each other whilst Gin helps those in need of protection, gets to know her baby sister Bria better and moves on her relationship with Owen – oh god he is so much better than that sanctimonious idiot Donovan Caine from the first 2 books. The theme in these books is elemental powers wielded by certain protaganists. Gin can wield both stone and ice magic and hence is very powerful. other elemental powers are fire and air and others have offshoots like metal and electricity. There are also giants, dwalves and vampires in this world although its the elemental powers that take central stage. As one other reviewer commented there is a little too much repetition and rehashing of the story and I wish Jennifer would have a little more confidence in her readers recall. However Gin is a great heroine, brave and noble and sexy and not afraid to kill those in need of killing which is a good trait for an assasin. Roll on the big confrontation with Mab!

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