Happily Ever After - Reads: Review - By A Thread by Jennifer Estep

When killing people is your job, there’s no such thing as a vacation.

Then again, how often does an assassin live long enough to enjoy her retirement? In this line of work, you either get lucky or you get dead. And since I destroyed my nemesis Mab Monroe a few weeks ago, all of Ashland’s lowlifes are gunning to make a name for themselves by taking out the lethal Spider—me, Gin Blanco. So I’m leaving behind my beloved barbecue joint and heading south with my baby sister, Bria, to cool my heels in a swanky beach town. Call it a weekend of fun in the sun. But when a powerful vampire with deadly elemental magic threatens an old friend of Bria’s, it looks like I’ll have to dig my silverstone knives out of my suitcase after all. Complicating matters further is the reappearance of Detective Donovan Caine, my old lover. But Donovan is the least of my problems. Because this time, the danger is hot on my trail, and not even my elemental Ice and Stone magic may be enough to save me from getting buried in the sand—permanently.

*Spoilers for previous books in the series*

With all the prior books centered around Gin’s need to kill Mab Monroe and help find some peace for her family that was murdered, I wondered what Gin would be doing after she successfully removed Mab for good. According to Finn, she needs a vacation. Gin and Bria head to a small resort town a day ahead of their men to attempt to relax and get away from the uneasiness in Ashland that has jumped up in intensity since Mab’s death. Everyone wants to be the one to kill the Spider, so the body count Gin’s been racking up over the past few weeks is on the rise. She agrees to get away and sees it as a chance to try to connect with her sister, Bria, who as Gin worries, doesn’t have a big reason to stay in Ashland anymore with the threat of Mab gone. Gin recognizes that if Bria left her, a piece of her heart would crack and never be repaired.

They head to Blue Marsh, a beach town where Bria had once lived and where her best friend growing up still lives. Callie runs a restaurant and when Gin sees the love Bria has for her friend, hurt and jealously takes over, until two men come in threatening Callie and her business. Gin steps in, as only Gin can do, and learns that a vampire in town, Randall Dekes, wants the land her restaurant is on and will stop at nothing to get it.

Owen and Finn get to the beach town and the group tries to figure out a plan to “strongly dissuade” Dekes from continuing to threaten Callie. That plan goes horribly wrong and Gin finds out just how strong Dekes is and what he’s doing to utilize all four elemental powers. The plan to simply dissuade Dekes turns in to a plan to not only kill him, but rescue people he’s holding at his home. And this is supposed to be Gin on vacation!

There are a few things that really stood out to me in this 6th book in the Elemental Assassin series. As much as I enjoyed the build-up and the long arc of the Mab storyline, it was refreshing to have a change of pace and a story that took place almost entirely outside of Ashland. For as horrible as Mab was, Dekes is no slouch in the bad guy department and in fact, does to Gin something that will take her awhile to truly get over. He steals from her in the worst way possible and she has to figure out a way to end him, even when he’s so much more powerful then she is. Taking the story to a new location, introducing a few new characters and bringing in a crazy, bad guy all help give the story and series a fresh take on Gin’s life and how she’s still trying to settle in to her life as being a pro-bono assassin.

Gin’s insecurities with Bria come out and are addressed throughout the entire book. Bria still isn’t truly accepting of Gin and what she does, and who can really blame her at this point. She’s a detective, she’s by the book, and it’s a struggle for her to see her sister and know that she kills people, even if those people are ones who need killing. All the emotion that Gin has regarding Bria and her worry that she’ll up and leave her comes out in one of the best scenes (my favorite scene) in the book.

“You’re mine,” Owen said in a fierce whisper, the heat in his eyes as bright as the scorching sun. “Not his. Mine. Only mine. Always mine.”

“I’m yours,” I agreed, then pushed him over onto his back. “But don’t you forget that you’re mine too. Only mine. Always mine.”

Owen growled and pulled my head down for another hard, almost brutal kiss. He wound his fingers through my hair, holding me just where he wanted to. I let him take control, let him lose himself in the emotions that were urging him on, urging both of us on.

Now - on to the men in Gin’s life. Owen is the perfect man for Gin. I love how he loves her – all of her, just as she is. He has from the start and he would rather fight by her side and accept her than be without her. And then there’s Donovan who shows back up. He’s now the detective in Blue Marsh and gets brought in on a personal level as well to the fight Gin and her friends have with Dekes. I’ve never been a fan of Donovan, and after this book I’m still not. I think anyone who loves Gin just can’t love him for how he treated her. While I wasn’t thrilled that he popped back up, he needed to. Gin has some things to set straight with him and there were a lot of things that needed to be said between the two of them. Through it all, when any other boyfriend might be jealous that an ex is back in their significant others life, Owen is solid. I could gush and love on Owen for an entire review, but I’ll restrain myself and just say that with the Donovan-Gin-Owen storyline, I came away so proud of Gin for how she handled everything and loving Owen even more for how much he loves Gin.

“…Finn, did you bring the information that I asked you to? Finn?”

He was too busy bending Bria over backward and planting a loud, smacking kiss on her to answer. It took them even longer to come up for air than it had Owen and me, and by the time Finn set Bria back up on her feet, most of the people in the restaurant were staring at them. A few of the wives were even poking their husbands in the chests, muttering about how they never got kissed like that anymore.

Finn grinned, gave an elaborate flourish with his hand, and dipped into a low bow, before straightening up and addressing the entire restaurant. “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how it’s done.”

This was a book that I ended up reading in one sitting; I simply couldn’t put it down. The story was fast paced and full of the humor we’re used to, especially from Finn, and a few sexy moments between Owen and Gin were there too. I like the feel of this story, taking us completely away from the city we’ve been in for the past five books and giving us Gin, still being her badass self, but this time in a quaint little beach town. She remains one of my favorite characters for many reasons, but the biggest being, she does what she needs to do to help people. And with each story, she gets more and more people on her side, I love that for her. A great addition to the series, and I’m hoping that one Jonah McAllister is going to get his…real soon!