Librarything / Goodreads
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Received for review from publishers (Netgalley)
Rating: 4.5 stars
Pages: 432
Publisher: Orbit
Summary: Spoilers for the first 3 books! Life is looking up for Sabina Kane. Now that her scheming grandmother is dead, the threat of war has passed and the rulers of the dark races are about to sign a treaty to ensure ongoing peace. Her relationship with sexy mage Adam Lazarus is strong and all her friends are around her. Even her magic training is progressing further than she ever expected. The only two dark spots in her otherwise settled life are her guilt over her sister Maisie's fragile mental state and Sabina's own sinking sense that she's got unfinished business with Cain, the mysterious cult leader she let get away months earlier.
When a string of murders rock the New York dark races community and threatens to stall the peace negotiations, Sabina finds herself helping to find the killer. Her investigation leads her down troubling paths that have her questioning everything - and everyone - she knows. And the closer she gets to the murderer, the more Sabina realises this is one foe she may not able to kill.
Thoughts: Silver-Tongued Devil was brilliant. I expected great things from Jaye Wells, but truth is that Green-Eyed Demon left me wondering where she could go with the series. Everything had ended so happily that I couldn't really work out why Wells needed two more books.
The reason? Because there is no such thing as a happy ending, not even in fiction! In real life, people don't just go from being a ruthless assassin for 50 years to being a warm-hearted softie overnight. And in real life, love and friendship aren't the only ingredients to lasting relationships. So while Sabina might want to ride into the sunset, that wasn't going to happen any time soon. And to honest, I am so very grateful for that!
Let's start with Sabina. She's one of my favourite characters in fiction, she is a take-no-prisoners woman who has a panache for violence. It's fabulous and depressing at the same time. But in the third book in the series, it felt like she was trying to be someone she wasn't. Luckily, that attempt is dealt with head-on in Silver-Tongued Devil. Not only did she deal with her own demons, she dealt with the way people around her were treating her too. *cough* Adam. *cough*
And while all the inter-character relationships were fantastically done, it was the gargantuan plot twists that made this book stand out. Jaye Wells is not afraid to "go there". She made some pretty big revaluations in this book and made her characters suffer through pretty horrific consequences because of them. What was especially gratifying was the way the plot built on existing scenes - Wells has been laying the groundwork for the events of Silver-Tongued Devil over the entire series. Now that? That's a real writer.
While the first half of the book was good, the second half was fantastic. The pace and the plot just grew more and more intriguing with each page - I found myself thinking about the book whenever I'd put it down. This book made going about my day a very frustrating venture, as all I wanted to do was read!! The only reason it isn't getting 5 stars? Well, it's not quite as funny as its predecessors. Other than that, it was perfection.
Bottom line? Silver-Tongued Devil was everything I didn't even know I wanted. It was a gripping installment to an already brilliant series. Go forth and read it!
No comments:
Post a Comment