Early Review – Black Widow (Elemental Assassin, Book 12) by Jennifer Estep (2/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Pocket Books
Release Date: November 25, 2014
ISBN-13: 978-1476774541
Stand Alone or Series: 12th book in the Elemental Assassin series
Source: eGalley from NetGalley.com
Rating: 2/5 stars

I got an ARC of this book to review through NetGalley. This is the twelfth book in the Elemental Assassin series by Estep. There are at least two more books planned for this series with the 13th book, Spider’s Trap, expected to release in July of 2015. I was really looking forward to this installment in the Elemental Assassin series but honestly it was a bit of a disappointment.

The mysterious MM Monroe is in town and determined to take over the underworld. Rather than outright challenging Gin, she has decided to plague everyone around Gin with problems (mostly of them the legal variety). All of Gin’s friends and family are struggling and Gin herself gets caught up in legal issues. All of this has Gin determined to get back to her assassin roots and take out MM Monroe once and for all.

As I said this book was a bit of a disappointment. It was like the Mab storyline rehashed all over again, but with less edge and less excitement. The awful recapping that has plagued this series off and on is back.

I really thought that the previous book in this series, Poison Promise, was one of the better books in this series. This series has been very uneven for me, it lags some and then every once in a while there is a really good book. This book was one of the worst ones.

All the characters that used to draw me in with their interest and excitement seem to just be lazily playing their set roles in this story. And they all do have set roles…no one goes out of their comfort zones here, there is really no character development to speak of.

As for the plot I really can’t even think of much to say about it. Gin faces off with MM Monroe, that’s about it. MM Monroe pulls some legal trouble to occupy Gin’s friends…even that isn’t all that interesting.

Given the ups and downs of this series, I think I am finally done with it. It just doesn’t hold all that much interest for me anymore. Estep does turn out quite a few books. She is very prolific, unfortunately that seems to make for some inconsistent writing quality. I would rather read less frequent books that are higher quality.

Overall this book was a disappointing one. While I have enjoyed the edginess of some of the books in this series and the interesting Elemental Magic system, for me the inconsistent quality of writing has finally made this series a no go for me. If you are an urban fantasy fan I would recommend checking out the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews, the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire, or the Jane Yellowrock series by Faith Hunter….they are much, much better urban fantasy series.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Ebook Reading Challenge
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge