And… away we go!

Through the last couple of books, we’ve had more than a few shake ups to the power structure of Cincinnati and the Hollows. The return of the demons–and the death of one master vampire and the whole ‘vampire soul’ binding mess.

Sn now when when a new crazy (even by vampire standards) master vampire is sent to take power? Well, it just stands to reason that Rachel is going to have to get involved.

Seeing Rachel start to stand up and actually take on the power and responsibility that she’s been flirting with (and fighting off) for all these books is a worthwhile change. I do hope it sticks. It’s a different level of story, but I think it’s about time.

In addition to that, we have the ongoing Hodin/Al hate triangle.

“I don’t know how you survive your ignorance,” he muttered. “I’ve warned you once. Now I’m telling you. If you don’t want to talk to Al, fine. I don’t want to talk to him most days. But you will not take Hodin as your mentor. He is dangerous.”

Urban fantasy is famous for having love triangles all over the place, so this is certainly a fun inversion to that.

I’m really curious to see where that goes.

Overall, another solid entry and I’m curiously optimistic to see where Harrison takes it from here!

Side note (spoilers!):

So, practically speaking, what exactly is the difference between keeping Constance as a mouse indefinitely (with no plan so far as I can tell to ever change that) and just killing her?

Is it because murder is unforgivable? We just talked about this…

I do hope they deal with that at some point.

Random thoughts:

Seeing my attention on him, he made the “I’ve got my eyes on you” gesture, and, frowning, I ran my middle finger under an eye to give him the one-fingered kiss-kiss back.

That’s… the bunny-eared kiss-kiss, but flipping them off instead, no? Oh my.

“You can’t control a city without an effective police force backing you,” he said, looking up at me. “Constance could savage someone on Central Parkway at midnight, and no one could stop her.”

Subtle. 😄