Review: By A Thread by Jennifer Estep

By A Thread
Book 6 in the Elemental Assassins series
Author: Jennifer Estep
Publisher: Pocket
Release date: 2/28/12
Author's website: Link

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.

Bad people are everywhere and Gin Blanco knows this too well.  Known as The Spider, she's one of the best assassins around.  She's retired from that line of work but that hasn't stopped people from trying to be the one that can finally say that they killed The Spider.  She decides to go on vacation to get away from it all only to run into more trouble when some thugs threaten a friend of her sister Bria.  Gin knows these type of people all too well and when they come after her and Bria she decides that it's time for The Spider to make a reappearance.  To make things worse, her sisters friend is married to Donovan Caine whom Gin had a relationship with early in the series.  Their relationship was a short, tension filled one that ended abruptly when Donovan came to the conclusion that he just couldn't be with Gin once he found out what she really did.  Donovan pretty much left town and didn't look back when Gin needed him the most.  She'll have to work alongside him and her other group of friends to take down a centuries old vampire by the name of Randall Dekes who is terrorizing the whole town.  He wants to build a casino and those that stand in his way by having property where it will be built is threatened or killed until they hand it over to him.  Bria's friend Callie has the last property in that space before the casino can be built.

I felt that Randall Dekes was one of the scariest villains that Jennifer Estep has had in her series so far.  The scenes in which he were featured gave me goosebumps because you could just tell that he was just pure evil!  He's also very powerful because he's an old vamp and Gin and her friends really had their work cut out for them in this book.  That meant working alongside Donovan Caine which was very difficult at times for Gin as it brought back so many good and bad memories for her.  But it also proved to her just how wonderful her current boyfriend Owen Grayson is by accepting Gin for who and what she does.  It may not be a profession that is one that comes with a lot of honor, but Gin will do anything and everything she can do to protect the ones that she loves.  Bria's eyes were finally opened to this during this book when she sees what Gin has to endure.  I love that the relationship between these 2 sisters started out with them essentially being strangers that had to get to know one another.  Because of this we get to read some really emotional scenes between the two of them that brought tears to my eyes. They were extremely well written by the author and I felt that they were able to move to a different level of their relationship because of the bond that they share. 

I'm giving By A Thread a rating of:

Gin and Bria's relationship is not the only one that has reached a new level in this book.  We also get to see how AWESOME Owen is and know that his love of Gin knows no bounds.  The readers of this series know that he loves Gin unconditionally and it was wonderful that Owen let Donovan Chase know that he had a good woman and lost her.  Gin and Owen make sure a great team together and it was exciting to see them fighting side by side!  Now I can't write a review about a book in this series and not mention my favorite character of the series...Finnegan Lane!  He was absolutely hilarious in By A Thread and provided the right touch of comedic support when it was needed.  That's what I love so much about this series.  The characters all come together and support each other whenever it's needed. They have become a family because of this and it's truly touching to see them together supporting one another in each book of the series.