Women Of The Otherworld Mini-Challenge # 3

http://www.moonlightgleam.com/2012/06/mini-challenge-3-women-of-otherworld.html

This one was kinda hard for me! The challenge is to create a post describing which of the first four books in the series challenge so far was your favourite! The difficulty for me isn't creating the post but choosing! The thing is that while Clay and Elena are my favourite couple in the series, of the first four books, theirs isn't my favourite! My favourite is actually the last one read in the challenge - Industrial Magic!



 Synopsis

Industrial Magic

Think your in-laws are scary? Try meeting Paige Winterbourne’s potential father-in-law: CEO of the Cortez Cabal, a multinational corporation…and the supernatural equivalent of the Mafia. Lucas Cortez has devoted his life to ruining the Cabals, though that doesn’t stop his father from expecting him to take over the family business someday. Benicio’s favorite ploy is to appeal to Lucas’s quixotic ideals by asking him to investigate Cabal cases of injustice.

After years of failure, Benicio finally has the perfect case: a teenage witch attacked and left for dead. Refusing will be difficult enough for Lucas…near impossible for his new witch girlfriend. Paige and Lucas soon discover that the young witch wasn’t the first Cabal teenager attacked.

When the infighting among the Cabals threatens to let the killer continue his spree, Paige and Lucas decide it’s up to them to stop him. The chase takes them on a cross-country hunt through the supernatural world, where allies can be found in the strangest places, including a celebrity necromancer, a wise-cracking Celtic deity, a pissed-off ghost, a half-mad clairvoyant, and a group of vampires who’d really rather be in an Anne Rice novel.

Why?

I think it's my favourite cause it contains all the characters I love from the previous books, with them all having at least some part to play in the story, plus it introduces a couple of new dimensions to Kelley's otherworld, namely the world of the Cabal and a glimpse into the afterlife. I love that Clay and Elena get a little page time and through Paige we see how they're working on their relationship issues and making progress. I love seeing the Cabal world through Paige's eyes and her initial encounter with Jaime as Jaime is buzzed up from being on stage. It's interesting seeing the vampires through her eyes as well. You see a lot of growth from the first three books, not just in the Pack but with Adam as well, he's actually seen that Paige's advancement in life isn't just down to her being an overacheiver, he can see how much Lucas has done, he can see Clay and Elena and how their careers have advanced even with pack duties and he's actually trying to get somewhere himself, follow in his step-dad's footsteps and get his degree. We also see how much Paige and Lucas' relationship grows and strengthens in this book as well.
There are so many dimensions to the book, Lucas' relationship with his father, the prejudice against witches from the Cabal and against vampires & Werewolves from just about everyone. The correction's of misconceptions such as those Paige had towards Jaime on meeting her, towards Eve and towards vampires. I love the argument about whether vampires are alive and whether they have a soul (and therefore an afterlife) or not. Lucas and Paige working out where their relationship is going. Paige re-evaluating her life direction, no longer focusing on creating her own coven (though it's not off the books altogether) but deciding to work with Lucas as a team helping supernaturals. We also see how not everything on the interracial council is perfect as Cassandra has been (unintentionally) lax in her duties as Vampire representative. She's disconnecting but until this book (and until Aaron pointed it out) Paige has not seen it and wouldn't have seen it as Cassandra is her sole (until she met Aaron in Stolen) contact in Vampire circles. As a result we also see a possible new member of the interracial council in the form of Aaron as second Vampire delegate!
Very fast-paced and action packed book with a lot of humour to balance out the more intense sections!