Black Magic Sanction (The Hollows #8)

I love and hate this series. The stories are entertaining and engaging, but the characters piss me off like no characters ever have. Why in Sam he\’ll would you keep helping or trying to save people who have tried to kill you MULTIPLE times?\’ And continue to do so? Even her ex-boyfriend tried to stab her and she still protected him. Her best friend almost murders her (sometimes purposefully) . She keeps hurting herself trying to save people who try to enslave, beat or try to kill her. They would have succeeds multiple times of it wasn\’t for her magic. I\’m actually wondering why I keep reading this series, I don\’t really like, respect, understand or care for these characters. This will probably be the last book I read in this series.

I want to start and say that I love this series… Or lived this series… This one is driving me crazy. Both Rachel and Ivy drive me nuts! Spoilers… kind of… Rachel can\’t kill anyone even if it\’s in extreme self defense. That is absolutely ridiculous to me. I consider myself of super high moral fiber. And I would never allow someone to hurt the people I love. Especially without a fight. I was highly annoyed with the pixy/faerie fight and Rachel\’s stance in the whole thing. Just insane. And Ivy has come off as a seriously emotionally constipated person. She\’s been annoying me for a few books now. Brooding Gothic vampire. Pleck. I honestly don\’t think I can stomach much more of these two.

So check this out. Rachel and Ivy are minding there own business, doing a bit of grocery shopping, when this blonde chick in a frumpy suit starts making eyes at Rachel. Or so she thinks. And Rachel\’s a little bit embarrassed, a little bit flattered, but not even a little bit interested . . . so that\’s AWK-ward. But, wait! Frumpy isn\’t checking Rachel out! Frumpy a member of the coven of moral and ethical standards, and she\’s is trying to take Rachel into custody. Like that\’s going to happen. Pfft. But the attempt does make quite a mess (one word—PRODUCE). And wait a minute, what\’s going on? Yeah, Rachel\’s been shunned, but there\’s a world of difference between shunning a witch and actively pursuing her. I smell a rat . . . (<——did you see what I did there? *snickers*) A couple of books ago, Rachel very sneakily stole Al\’s summoning name so he couldn\’t be called out of the Ever After and let loose on her or her loved ones. They\’ve since resolved their issues . . . *snorts* mostly . . . but Rachel still has his name. And that is how we find out not only can Rachel\’s blood kindle demon magic, but she can also be summoned like a demon, and my, doesn\’t that complicate things. Especially when the previously thwarted coven of moral and ethical standards becomes privy to this information, using it to, yes, summon Rachel. Which puts her in a bit of a JAM. (<——I did it AGAIN). B/c strawberries . . . in the grocery store . . . never mind. *sighs* It also makes her angry. Makes me angry too, b/c guess who summoned Rachel for the straight-laced coven (whose members would rather DIE than have a bit of smut on their souls)? Go on . . . guess . . . I\’ll give you hint—his name has four letters, and is also slang for stealing, which is ironic, b/c that\’s what he does. YEP. Nick just can\’t stay gone. Which is unfortunate, b/c I HATE HIM. *takes a calming breath* Black Magic Sanction is my favorite book in the series up to this point. Al and Rachel grow in their new roles as teacher and student, and Rachel finally shows some caution on the romance front. Trent is consistently NOT evil, and even shows that he values Rachel as a person <——YES!! And Rachel finally starts to accept what she is, understanding that it\’s who she is that matters. LOVE it. Love it ALL.

Reading this series of books is addictive – the way watching a train wreck is mesmerizing. They are well written, with lots of great action and some very interesting plot lines. And I lived in Cincinnati for over a decade, so the references to local sights are also fun. But the primary character – Rachel Morgan – is the mesmerizing train wreck. Why her friends keep saving her from herself, I will never understand. At one point, I was so frustrated with her behavior (good writing that I was that invested) that when Rachel got kicked in the head and tromped on, I spontaneously cheered! I know the author isn\’t going to kill her off – and I keep hoping that one of these times, this character may actually learn something. If the writing wasn\’t so entertaining, I would probably have given up on this series. But the books are truly a fun read. Just don\’t expect Rachel Morgan to ever make sense, empathize with anyone else, or keep her mouth shut when it might save her and her friends from a world of hurt. Then again, I\’m not reading the very last book yet (almost but not quite there), so until I read the final installment, I can\’t say for sure that Rachel never grows up. At least at this point, I can still hope that it may happen. Maybe…

This is a strange book. It\’s the 8th book in the Rachel Morgan series. In the books Morgan (a witch) works with Ivy Tamwood (a vampire) and Jenks (a pixie) as she battles the forces of the dark side. In this book, the witches coven hear that Morgan works with demons to \”do down\” the baddies and decide that she needs to be reigned in. They tried \”shunning her\” at the end of last book. When that didn\’t work, they decided to be more proactive and attmpt to arrest her (and send her to Alcatraz) or lobotomise her. The first half of the book is good. It sets up the arrest attempts well and I was thinking (at that stage) that this was the best book in the series. The problem is that I think that once she gets to the \”dealing with the coven\” stage, it takes too long to get to a conclusion. Through the second half of the book, I was thinking \”Come on, come on, get a fricking move on.\” In short, it dragged and that dragged down my view of the whole book to my mind.

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