This is month five of the Women Of The Otherworld Series Challenge hosted by Moonlight Gleam and this month's book is Haunted!
Haunted
Eve Levine made a bargain with Fate, and now she’s come to collect, sending Eve off on a quest to retrieve the soul of an escaped demi-demon. Playing ghost world bounty hunter isn’t exactly what Eve had in mind for an afterlife career, but a deal is a deal. Eve never breaks a promise…even when the cost of repaying that debt turns out to be more than this ghost can afford.
My Review
While I do love this book (it is Kelley writing!) it isn't my favourite of the series, I prefer the werewolves books, Paige's books and Jaime's! However having said that I do love Eve! Her sarcastic attitude reminds me of Elena but Eve has less of a moral code! She is as stubborn as Elena and Paige as well but she comes through in the end. My favourite thing about this book though is seeing the world of the afterlife explored, seeing more of the fates and how things operate on the otherside.
I also loved seeing a different side to Kris as well. In Dime Store Magic Kris is painted in a very bad light and while he has done some questionable things being the son and heir of a Cabal CEO in life, he's not a bad guy. We see his better side in this book, the real Kris not the Nast heir and he really loves Eve. He's very patient, waiting for her to be ready to accept their relationship, to accept him as a permanent part of her life. He's also mischeivious and makes me laugh a lot in the book, like when he put's Eve in a nurses uniform (she really should have known better then to allow him to change her clothes!). I like how her relationship with Jaime develops in this book as well. It gets off to a rocky start cause she has no idea about ghost-necromancer protocol so she gets on Jaime's bad side at the beginning but I think Jaime learns to trust her a little towards the end and they actually get along.
We also meet our first angels, the primary one being Trsiel. A couple of the angels we briefly meet are quite stuck-up but I liked Trsiel although he is a bit overly goody-goody (understandable considering he's a full-blooded rather then ascended angel) even more so then Paige! We also meet a couple of demon's one of which I liked the other I loved! Dantalion I liked for his humour but I loved Aratron and he is someone we meet again. If there is such a thing as a good demon Aratron would be one. He doesn't mess in mortal affairs or thrive on Chaos like Dantalion does.
The Nix is an interesting character to meet, the baddie of the book but how she became what she was interesting. A demi-demon ghost confined to influencing and sharing the bodies of female hosts only. A far cry from what she was before circumstance caused her to become limited in what she could do.
I also like the idea of Eve being tested for angelhood, with all she did when alive (namely being a teacher of black magic), not to mention being the daughter of a lord demon and yet the fates choose her to be tested for the ranks of angels! Every bit as amusing as the fact that Robert Vasic, (Adam's step dad) is a half-demon who used to be a priest and now teaches demonology! I also loved how surprised she was that Lucas didn't embrace her taking over Paige's body immediately. Lol, in her mind she built up a rapport with Paige and Lucas from watching over them from the ghost world but she realises that the relationship is one-sided as of course they have no idea that she's been keeping an eye on them as well as Savannah so they don't trust her. She does recognise that Lucas' distrust is understandable seeing as they only have her reputation and the fact that she broke his arm the first and last time she met him to go by!
Still everything works out well in the end and I enjoyed learning about the afterlife and what happens after death in Kelley's world, we even had a cameo from the first major otherworld villian Daniel (or as he's called in this to his chargrin Dannyboy!). Interesting to see how he's currently spending his afterlife! So glad I picked this up again to read as I loved seeing the other side to Eve and Kris that we didn't get to see in the first four books.
