The Witch with No Name by Kim Harrison

 I struggled with this novel a bit. Perhaps it's because the series is ending, but for some reason I came to the point with The Hollows where the thrill was gone, and I didn't care all that much about what happens to Rachel, Ivy, Trent and Jenks. Sorry. So, I picked it up and put it down multiple times while trying to finish reading it, getting through several other books in the meantime.

Cormel's vampire minions finally bring things to a head when they try to kill Ivy. When Rachel confronts him, he agrees that if she will bring the vampires their lost souls, he will free Ivy and relinquish the debt Rachel owes him from some previous misadventure (Harrison doesn't refresh our memories here). Fortuitously, Rachel figures out where the lost souls have gone all this time, just about the time things hit the fan, so she is able to cobble together the right spells and rituals to do the job, with the help of the evil elf leader, Landon.

She captures Felix' soul and returns it to his body, which of course creates a whole new set of problems when Cormel withdraws his protection and a rival vampire faction which opposes the soul-returning faction attacks her home/church, forcing Rachel and Trent to play dead for a while. From that point forward, it's chapter after chapter of leaping from frying pan to fire as Trent and Rachel deal with the return of the demons to mundane reality, Ellasbeth's ongoing manipulations to wrest control of Ray and Lucy from Trent, Cormel's insistence on giving all the vampires their souls, Rachel trying but failing to stay under the radar vis a vis the Godess' mystics, and Ivy and Nina's tumultuous relationship. About the only faction that hasn't gone crazy seems to be the weres.

Everything seems to get wrapped up nicely in the end, and I wonder what Harrison will be up to next, now that the Hollows has reached completion.

The Undead Pool by Kim Harrison

 I really feel like I need to put together a plot synopsis, complete with spoilers, for this book, as a number of important things happen, I believe, for the future of The Hollows series. Rachel has been working security for Trent, while Quen is away guarding the girls at Ellasbeth's in San Francisco. The elven community is evidently not terribly happy about Trent's involvement with a daywalking demon, and this causes a great deal of the plot conflict.

Strange, powerful waves of wild magic begin to flow across Cincinnati, causing spells cast while they are in motion to behave erratically and usually destructively. Something about the magic is also putting the master, undead, vampires into a deep slumber, and their living minions are getting out of control, attacking humans indiscriminately. When Rachel and Trent investigate, they discover that the source of the wild magic seems to be Rachel's new ley line, and the waves are somehow following her in her travels around the city. But Rachel is not the person responsible for causing them, and as the surrounding city turns chaotic, she and her allies are forced to deal with the mess when the authorities are nearly powerless.

On the personal side, the growing attraction between Trent and Rachel is driving them both about half crazy, as they pretend it doesn't exist, for the sake of politics and "the children." Bis, the gargoyle, is growing larger and more skilled in riding the ley lines, Jenks' children are growing up and moving on, Ivy is trying to free her lover, Nina, from her possession by a powerful master vampire, Felix. And Newt, the insane elder stateswoman among demons, appears to be a little more savvy about the realities of the situation than anyone has previously given her credit for.

We get up close and personal with elven theology, when the leaders of the religion show up to confront Trent and ostensibly to help the FIB and IS get to the bottom of the wild magic attack on the city. We get to know the leader of the Free Vampires all too well, as he is involved right up to his bloodshot eyeballs.

To keep the vampires from dying, and the city from being destroyed, Rachel bites off far more power than she can chew, becomes all too closely acquainted with the Elvish Goddess, and risks ending up as nuts as Newt. She and Trent finally succumb to the inevitable, and suffer the consequences of angering the elven council, and the things Rachel must do to win permanently destroy her relationship with Algliarept, her demon mentor.

Seems like there's still some room to run in this series. Harrison still writes an entertaining yarn.

Ever After by Kim Harrison

I think I read somewhere that Harrison is going to be wrapping up this series pretty soon. The overall tenor of this book would tend to support that, as some of the major conflicts work their way towards resolution, and she seems to cease introducing as many new twists in this one - though there's an issue with a certain master vampire that's probably going to have to be dealt with in an upcoming episode, if it hasn't already been done in the "apocrypha."

I found it amusing that Rachel seems to have undergone a personal evolution with respect to some of her enemies at the beginning of the series, e.g., Trent Kalamak and Algliarept "Al" the demon. She began the series believing Trent to be an evil drug dealer, but eventually came to view him as an ally at first, then a friend, and now we begin to see the possibility of romantic attraction there. In most series, we'd  move from the stage where two characters spark conflict immediately and by the end of the novel, they're madly in love, but Harrison has brought us a bit more slowly and laboriously to the point. When Rachel summons Al in the early going, it is clear that he is a very dangerous demon, lusting for control of her soul (and body?), but Rachel has gradually come to know him and the other demons better, and understand their history, and now the two are definitely allies, if not friends. Of course, finding out that she is actually genetically a demon, too, might have made some difference in her attitude.

The plot? Oh, yeah. Quen wants Rachel to help him to keep Trent safe when Quen is unable to perform his duties. Rachel declines. On a trip to Trent's estate shortly after that, they are all surprised when the demon Ku'sox attacks Quen and Ceri in order to kidnap Luci, Trent's daughter, Ku'sox is already responsible for the abduction of a number of other babies with the same syndrome which Rachel has alone survived.

Ku'sox has big plans to make all the other demons subservient to him, and messes up all the ley lines that lead to the Ever After. Rachel is blamed for it, and unless she can fix the ley lines, rescue the babies, and vanquish Ku'sox, she's in big trouble.

Fun stuff, though there is some sadness as Harrison kills off a couple of major players.

Into the Woods by Kim Harrison

Into the Woods seems to be the official apocrypha for The Hollows series. There is a story  about Rachel that takes place before she becomes a runner, which explains some of the family dynamics that motivated her to succeed, yet gave her the poor self image we see in the early books in the series. Trying to raise her father's ghost to get his approval of her career choice goes slightly awry, and leads to some interesting times.

We have a tale of Jenks striking out on his own in a bit of mutual pixie aid, and a tale of Jenks and Trent in a daring rescue of Trent's daughter from her mother's family. Ivy also appears in a fairly long tale that explains more about her relationship with Kisten, the vampire community at large, and her readiness to take Rachel as her partner.

There are a couple of other tales, as well, that relate to other bits of Harrison's work, but it's mostly all about The Hollows.

A Perfect Blood by Kim Harrison

This is the tenth book in The Hollows series by Kim Harrison, and it's pretty much the quality we've come to expect and love. Rachel really sells her soul cheaply in the first few pages. She's been unable to get her car registered and obtain a drivers license since she was outed as a demon, and demons have no legal standing in Cincinatti. When Inderlander Security (IS) offers to cut through the red tape for her in return for her investigating a grisly sacrificial murder, she agrees with alacrity. Wow! I mean the DMV can be frustrating, but really?

Rachel and her friends, including bodyguard assigned by her father, Wayde, troop off to the murder scene and manage (as always) to notice things the IS and FIB investigators didn't see. It turns out a group of humans called HAPA (who want to eradicate all the supernatural species) is trying to re-create demon blood in witches, which they can subsequently use to cast their own spells. Their efforts are leaving witch victims horribly disfigured, leading to death, and the need to find a new experimental subject while the blood they extract from the last remains fresh is turning them into serial killers with a five day deadline.

Again (rather oddly) Rachel is the only person around who knows how to make charms that will track down these lunatics, so she begins producing them for IS to use. Rachel's magic is on lockdown, basically - she's wearing a bracelet that keeps her from tapping the ley lines, and if she takes it off too abruptly, the overload of magical energies will kill her, and even if she goes through the properly patient procedure to remove it, it will result in Algliarept (Al) finding out she's still alive and coming to steal her away to the everafter once again.

So, somewhat predictably (it's amazing how much you can figure out about the likelihood of a bit of plot succeeding by looking at the page count) when Rachel accompanies the IS and FIB on their next raid to capture the HAPA crooks, things go horribly wrong, and without her most potent magic to defend herself, she ends up being taken captive, her own blood used to fuel the spells of the evil cohorts. She and a fellow prisoner, Winona, who amazingly survives her transformation into horned demonic form, finally manage to break out of their cell and are rescued by Trent, the elf, just in the nick of time, from Eloy, the ruthless HAPA leader.

The story continues with various plots and counterplots, with a big surprising ending, when a whole new agency arrives to save the day, obviously a new element to be explored more thoroughly in coming installments. Trent and Rachel's relationship grows and changes, becoming both more comfortable and more irritating to them both, I think. A good couple hours entertainment for your literary dollar.

Pale Demon by Kim Harrison

I was so excited, waiting for this book, and it got to be the first actual purchase for my Xmas Nook! The purchase and download went far too smoothly to be believed, and I was reading it within minutes. This novel in The Hollows series gives us a chance to see a little more of Harrison's world than she has revealed before.

Rachel must travel to San Francisco to attend her brother's wedding, and to attend a Coven meeting where she hopes to get the sanctions and shunning brought against her by the witches removed. Rachel has been caught one too many times performing black magic, and the situation doesn't look good, except that she has been assured of some covert support at the meeting by a couple of the witches who have seen her in action, Oliver and Vivian. You know, this whole series has just a touch of that out-of-the-frying-pan flavor that I like so well, as Rachel has mostly been caught in reactive mode to the changes around her, and as she discovers more about herself, the world she's been born into, and the elves, witches, weres and demons around her, she has used that knowledge to survive the latest round of slings and arrows, figuratively speaking, grow up, and move on.

Trent also has business on the West Coast, it transpires, and needs to hire Rachel to be his bodyguard for the trip. She still has him bound to herself as a familiar, as a consequence of the last escapade in the series, but has agreed to remove the curse from him, and break the unnatural ties that bind them. Trent is being forced into a closer association with Rachel than either of them would apparently prefer - leaving deeper, less conscious feelings out of the situation - because Ceri is about to have her baby, and his real bodyguard and manservant, Quen, refuses to leave Cincinatti at this crucial time. Trent won't disclose the nature of his business to Rachel, except to say that it is very important, and personal, and as you might well imagine, this doesn't sit well with her. She just has to keep poking and prying at things.

When agents of the Coven conspire to block Rachel from getting on a direct flight to San Francisco (why don't any of these people use their brooms in the manner they're supposed to? I mean, if those teen upstarts from Hogwarts can do it, why not?), she, Ivy, Jenks and Trent are forced to travel by land, across the country. Road trip on steroids! Or maybe hemorrhoids. They start out in Trent's HumVee and ride in style for a while, but after an couple of attacks by either the Coven's goons or Trent's former in-laws, they are forced to abandon that vehicle in Saint Louis and proceed in Rachel's mom's battlestar of a car.

This is the first time, I think, that we've been given much of a glimpse at what lies outside of the big urban areas after The Turn. The badlands went really really bad. People generally try to stick to the interstates whenever possible, as you never know what sort of creatures are lurking in the shadowy byways of America these days. So, the road trip in Pale Demon isn't Kerouac, by any stretch of the imagination, but it serves as a pretty good plot...er...vehicle.

Lots of time in this book for Harrison to flesh out her major characters a bit further, and there are many lessons learned on the nature of loyalty, family, and love. Drat the wait, I want to see what happens next!

Dead Witch Walking, by Kim Harrison

I started getting lost on some of the details of this series as I was reading #7 and #8, so I decided to go back to the beginning and catch back up.
The alternate history behind this series is that in the late twentieth century, a rogue biological agent got loose from the labs, infecting tomatos, which wiped out a great portion of the human race. During this time period,  called The Turn, the witches, weres, vampires and other supernaturals who had been a very small and hidden part of the population all along were not affected by the plague, and they emerged from hiding to make sure key industries and services continued. When the plague was over, a somewhat uneasy peace developed, as humans decided to forego hunting and killing the Inderlanders - the supernatural races - as they used to do, Pre-Turn, whether out of gratitude or mere pragmatism is left to your imagination.
Rachel Morgan is a witch, employed by Inderlander Security, or IS,  as a runner. Her mission is to hunt down supernaturals who are using their abilities to harm or take advantage of either humans or other Inderlanders. Her runs have been going amiss lately, and she finally decides it's time to leave IS. When she gives her notice, IS issues a death warrant on her - IS is a bit like the Mafia in that few leave their contracts and survive. Joining her departure from IS is another runner, Ivy, who is also a living vampire - a vampire created by being born to another vampire, rather than by blood exchange conversion - and Jenks, a pixie.
They join forces to form their own private investigations business, and they all move into an abandoned church, which they use as both living quarters and offices. The rest of the story deals with how Rachel avoids the hit squads of the IS, scores a big bust on a distributor of illegal engineered biologicals, and ends up owing a demon a favor. We get introduced to some of the key characters in the rest of the series, like Trent Kalamack, the elf politician, Glenn Edden, the FIB agent, and Nick Sparagmos, the wizard and thief. Rachel's tendency to set out on missions impulsively, without any contingency planning, gets her into all sorts of dicey situations, which are really the backbone of this series.

White Witch, Black Curse by Kim Harrison

As I was reading the latest novel in The Hollows series, I just got the nagging feeling that I was missing something. I checked my personal collection, and saw that I hadn't purchased a copy of White Witch, Black Curse, but I thought I'd checked it out at the library. I went and bought a copy in paperback and began to read it, and it seemed a little familiar through the first chapter, then started to twist and turn in new, undiscovered directions. I think I'd actually read the preview "blurb" in the back of For a Few Demons More and that's why it seemed familiar at first.
Anyway, there's a banshee on the loose in this one, killing humans in Cincinnati. Banshees drain life energy and emotions from humans, witches and vampires, with a preference for the darker emotions of anger, hate, loneliness and despair. The old ones who are still around have learned to take their feedings in small doses, hanging around nursing homes, hospitals and so forth, draining just enough emotion to survive, but not enough to kill and be noticed. Rachel's friend and FIB agent, Glenn, has been left nearly dead by his encounter with a banshee who has apparently decided to stop limiting herself, and she gets called in to try to capture the creature.
In the midst of this, Rachel is trying to determine the nature of her relationship with Marshall, the male witch she worked with while chasing down The Focus, negotiating a better arrangement with the demon Algliarept, and dealing with the emotional impact of her mother moving away to the West Coast. She discovers that she has a ghost haunting her church, coincidentally a spirit she was involved with when she was a teenager, dealing with the pain of her father's death.
As usual, in Harrison's work, there's a lot of harrowing action, soul-searching, and hints of plots and conflicts to come. Try not to miss this book in the series, like I did.

For a Few Demons More, by Kim Harrison

So, since I fell a little behind this week, I'm gonna do a twofer today. Here's the review of a book that's two books back in The Hollows series by Harrison, and I'll also post a review of the 2nd to last book that I just finished.
I have a hate/love relationship with loose threads in a novel. I hate it when an author leaves unfinished business, not solving mysteries raised within the confines of the front and back cover, but I love the fact that it means there are definitely more novels to come in the series to read and enjoy. If you read paperbacks, like I do, you generally are aware that the next novel in a series is already out in hardback, but still...

Kim Harrison leaves a couple of unanswered questions in this latest novel (spoiler alert), For a Few Demons More, in The Hollows series. What was the demon, Newt, looking for when she trashed Rachel's church? And who was the dastardly fiend who set up the deal between the demon Al, and Piscarry? Well, those are not horribly bad spoilers, I guess.

The story begins with Newt showing up unsummoned in Rachel and Ivy's home and thrashing the place, looking for something she's lost. Rachel believes it to be "the focus" a relic recovered in the previous book which bears a demonic curse that affects Weres, allowing them to create new Weres from humans, rather than by procreation.

The focus is highly fought over by all of the factions in Inderlander Cincinnati throughout the course of this book. Someone is killing weres in the process of trying to discover who holds the focus, so they can get it for themselves. In the middle of this mystery, Rachel is busy trying to figure out her relationship with Ivy, provide security at Trent Kalamack's wedding, find her way to a happy balance between being one of the good guys and using demonic magic, and keep the focus from doing more damage or falling into the wrong hands.

The heroes and villains in this piece are a pretty good mix of cardboard cutout characters, like the two leaders of the major Were factions, somewhat developed characters, like Quen the elf and Ceri the rescued demon familiar, and well-developed characters, like Jenks the pixie, Trent, and Ivy. I could list a few more, but you get the drift, and I say this to make the point that novels grow more captivating the less of the former and the more of the latter there are.

The ending was a little confusing to me. In the climactic battle between the forces of evil and not-so-evil, a number of people Rachel cares for are killed. When everything settles down, it turns out that some of them didn't die after all (how's that for avoiding a spoiler?), but it wasn't really explained very well why not, and the fate of some of the folks in the battle is left hanging. Then, Rachel does something to herself that should/could have some long lasting, not to mention interesting, and potentially lethal consequences, and by a bit of deus ex machina sleight of hand, the consequences are ameliorated (which raises another set of questions which I definitely can't ask without a spoiler). I'd rather hoped to see Harrison explore those consequences
thoroughly, but she seems to have avoided it for the moment. Drat!

All, in all, this was definitely worth reading, though I may have to read the last twenty or thirty pages again just to get it all straight in my mind.

Black Magic Sanction, by Kim Harrison

Kim Harrison's latest novel in The Hollows series has a lot of that "out of the frying pan" quality that I really enjoy in a novel. Our heroine, Rachel Morgan, has been shunned by the white witch coven, for being contaminated by black magic. Previously, this has merely made things inconvenient, but not intolerable.
However, the coven has decided that her potential to bear children who will be demons poses a direct threat, and they decide to neutralize her by capturing her, neutering her, and locking her up in Alcatraz. They send one of their members to capture her, and the mayhem begins. In the midst of her conflict with the coven, she's still at odds with Trent Kalamack, the politically highly placed elf, and in danger of being abducted by certain members of the demonic community, as well. About the only thing that doesn't erupt into trouble in this installment is her relationship with her vampire roommate, Ivy.
She manages to evade the first attempt to capture her, but the second one succeeds, and she is confined in Alcatraz. She escapes narrowly, with the help of her resident gargoyle, and the re-embodied ghost, Pierce. The coven then decides to attack her and her friends in the church where she lives and works, with catastrophic results for pretty much everyone concerned.
Rachel concocts a twisted ploy to stalemate the coven, Kalamack and the demons. Putting this one into play both reveals some previously unsuspected abilities on her part, and puts her into a great deal of danger.
This novel is fast-moving, interesting, and contains some good plot twists, as well as revealing a few more things about the history of the world Harrison has created. It's worth the high price of the hardback version to read this right away.