Venom

Elemental Assassin, Book 3

By: Jennifer Estep

Narrated by: Lauren Fortgang

Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

"It's hard to be a badass assassin when a giant is beating the crap out of you. Luckily, I never let pride get in the way of my work. My current mission is personal: annihilate Mab Monroe, the Fire elemental who murdered my family, which means protecting my identity, even if I have to conceal my powerful Stone and Ice magic when I need it most.

"To the public, I'm Gin Blanco, owner of Ashlands best barbecue joint. To my friends, I'm the Spider, retired assassin. I still do favors on the side. Like ridding a vampire friend of her oversized stalker - Mab's right-hand goon who almost got me dead with his massive fists.

"At least irresistible Owen Grayson is on my side. The man knows too much about me, but I'll take my chances. Then there's Detective Bria Coolidge, one of Ashland's finest. Until recently, I thought my baby sister was dead. She probably thinks the same about me. Little does she know, I'm a cold-blooded killer... who is about to save her life.

©2010 Jennifer Estep (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Estep has really hit her stride with the gritty and compelling Elemental Assassin series. She surrounds her fascinating and complex heroine with a cadre of supporting players, each of whom are intriguing in their own right. Brisk pacing and knife-edged danger make this an exciting page-turner. Kudos to Estep, who is rapidly heading toward the top of the urban fantasy genre!" ( Romantic Times)

Good series, love the narrator!

Lauren Fortgang really gives Gin Blanco life. I am enjoying this series. This is a series to start from the beginning. In this book we are introduced to Gin’s sister and I like Gin’s new love interest. The only negative is that each book refers to Gin’s past a little too much (don’t know why I find it a little irritating). This will not stop me from listening to the rest of the series!!

Fun, if you don't think about it too much

Originally posted at Fantasy Literature.

Venom is the third book in Jennifer Estep’s ELEMENTAL ASSASSIN series about Gin Blanco, an assassin who runs The Pork Pit, a barbecue restaurant in Ashland, Tennessee. My review will contain spoilers for the previous books, so you might not want to read it if you haven’t yet read Spider’s Bite and Web of Lies.

Gin has been trying to retire from her assassin’s trade, but as long as the Fire Elemental Mab Monroe runs Ashland as if she’s a crime boss, there will always be people in distress who need Gin’s help. Gin is all too happy to help them because her eventual goal is to take Mab down because Mab killed Gin’s mother and big sister about 15 years ago.

This time the damsel in distress is a vampire named Roslyn who is being stalked by Elliot Slater, the giant who’s Mab’s top security guy. Gin knows that Elliot is a serial killer who enjoys stalking women before he finally rapes and kills them, but the Ashland police have been ineffective, as usual, at bringing him to justice. That’s because the police are also under Mab’s long-armed influence. All except for Donovan Caine, Gin’s part-time lover who left town because he couldn’t handle having a relationship with an assassin, and Bria Coolidge, the new detective who recently replaced Caine. Gin immediately recognizes Bria as the “baby sister” who she thought had died at Mab’s hand all those years ago. What is Bria doing in Ashland? Gin wants to figure that out before revealing herself as Bria’s sister. As Gin and her friends plan and maneuver to kill Elliot Slater, Bria keeps showing up. Gin is impressed with her courage and sense of duty. She’s a female version of Donovan Caine.
The plot of Venom moves quickly and is fairly exciting. It’s easy to care for Gin and her friends as they are essentially vigilantes in a town where the authorities aren’t doing their jobs. Gin’s personal life is interesting, too. She still has a thing for Donovan Caine, but they’ve been out of touch and there’s a new man in her life — Owen Grayson, a rich businessman who, it turns out, has some secrets, too. And then, of course, there’s the relationship with her sister. When will Gin reveal herself? What will Bria say? Will they team up together to take Mab down?

Despite the fun story, there are so many irritating little things about this series that I feel I can only recommend it to those who can just enjoy the plot without scrutinizing it and without being annoyed by Estep’s writing quirks. (If you managed to get through Web of Lies without being irritated, you’re probably fine and you can just skip the rest of my review.)
The plot is fun if you’re willing to not think too much about it. (I’d love to do that, but since I’m supposed to be writing a review, I feel like I can’t.) Once you start asking yourself whether their might be better ways to accomplish Gin’s goals (remembering that she is the best assassin in the city and the ultimate goal is to bring down Mab), you start to notice how convoluted Gin’s plans are and it gets harder and harder to suspend disbelief. For example, why does Gin carry only five short silverstone knives as weapons? Wouldn’t a gun make much more sense? Why doesn’t she ever call the police for help or give them information about the bad guys? Estep tells us that the police are corrupt, but so far we’ve seen their leaders (Caine and Bria) act admirably. Why doesn’t Gin use her magic when she’s getting beat up by one of Mab’s goons? She is constantly being beaten nearly to death and she uses the lame excuse that she doesn’t want to give herself away as an Elemental, yet we see her using her magic to chill the milk in The Pork Pit, a public place. Gin is trained in all sorts of weapons, including guns and the crossbow. Why not just hide in a tree or a building and shoot Mab when she walks by? This works for major world leaders, why not Ashland’s crime boss? If Gin’s such a great assassin, why can’t she kill Mab and get it all over with? Obviously the reason is that if she did, the ELEMENTAL ASSASSIN series would end. So, in each installment, we get an elaborate scheme to take down one of Mab’s associates, not Mab herself, and Gin is always almost killed. Again, if you’re willing to just go with it, the plot is fun enough, but it’s definitely sloppy.

Another issue is the writing quirks, and these are so noticeable that I suspect they bother many readers. There are many examples such as Gin’s tendency to use most of the characters’ first and last names most of the times she mentions them, the way she talks about people “getting dead” instead of being killed, the fact that she always has to say baby sister and silverstone knives and chicory coffee, the way that each character’s eye color and their clothing and jewelry are described each time they appear on the scene, and the huge amount of recapping of old events. Every time one of these things happened, I had a negative physiological reaction. One of them did make me laugh, however:

"…Sophia … was a cook down at The Pork Pit, the barbecue restaurant Fletcher had left me upon his death. Sophia was also rather handy at disposing of the many bodies I left in my wake….”

Every time we see Sophia in The Pork Pit, she’s stirring a big pot…. uh, remind me never to eat there.

The audio versions of the ELEMENTAL ASSASSIN series, read by Lauren Fortgang, are wonderfully done. I recommend them if you’re going to read this series.

Good narrator, extremely repetitive!!

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Yes!! If I hear "Sloppy, sloppy,sloppy" or "gray on green" or "gray on blue" (describing their eyes meeting in EVERY scene) I'm going to need a drink! There are things I like about this series which is why I've continued through 3 books so far but the repetition is driving me slowly nuts.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Gin is an interesting character and now that they've gotten rid of that annoying love interest Donovan Caine for a more multi-dimentional one, that part of her story is better too. She has a good backstory...please stop repeating it. I heard you the first 20 times.

What does Lauren Fortgang bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Lauren is a great narrator. Perfect for this part, to me she IS the voice of Gin.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Yes, in hopes that they'd edit some of the repetition out of the movie script.

Any additional comments?

I'm undecided if I'll continue this series. One more and I'll see how I feel about it...

Best of the series

This book is the best of the series. The writing and characters have a new depth. Lauren Fortgang, the reader, continues to be perfect for this series. I'm looking forward to the next book!

Other Reviews WRONG! NOT Repetitive!

Any additional comments?

So, I confess, I did read the reviews as I was binging my way through this awesome series. Some other reviewers made the comment that everything was repeated at least 3 times. Here's the thing, if you are reading the books out of order, an author doing due diligence has a responsibility to fill in the back story. Or, if like me, you always have a book going, after awhile, characters and plot lines tend to jumble in my mind. I appreciated those little repetitions, because they let me know where I was. The series is great enough that I listened to the entire thing non-stop. I highly recommend it.

Great addition to the series

I like where things are going. Definitely my kind of book with a great, sarcastic heroine.

Wow

I love these books about Gin Blanco, "The Spider"!!
I' m on to the next one right now!!

Which Story Comes First

Interesting story, I like strong female leads...however, from reviewing the info on Audible, I cannot figure where this book fits in the series...it was difficult to follow some of the plot because I did not have the background info I wanted ...

4 Stars

Venom is book 3 in the Elemental Assassin series. It is Urban Fantasy set in Ashland, Tennessee, USA. The main character is 30-year-old Gin Blanco/Genevieve Snow. She is a stone and ice elemental. Her assassin name is The Spider, but at the end of book 1, Gin retired. Now more than anything she is working cases to help people, pro-bono, and is not taking contract kills anymore. She has become more vigilante than assassin. In this book, Gin’s long lost sister, Bria, shows up when she becomes the town’s new detective. We see more of Rosalyn Phillips, vampire and club owner, and Xavier, giant and part time police officer and club bouncer. They are integral to the storyline in this book and I hope we continue to see more of them going forward now that their main part is done. We finally get to see the full flashbacks to what happened when Gin was 13 and her family was killed by Mab Monroe. The budding love interest in Venom is Owen Grayson. I’m interested to see where that will lead and if he is trustworthy.

I enjoyed this book, but am still annoyed by the constant repetition of things like Gin’s grey eyes, Owen’s violent eyes, “counting the seconds 5, 10, 20, 30, 45,” palming silverstone knives, Sophia’s broken voice, and Mab and Gin’s runes. I don’t know if the author thinks we are really stupid and need to be constantly reminded or if she just has a lazy writing style. I am leaning toward lazy because I notice a lot of things are written very conveniently and with situations and people being a little too easy and basic. Not overly intricate or creative with plotting things out. Thankfully, the story itself is still good because those things do get to be grating. There were quite a few editing and proofreading misses in this book. Things like wrong words used, backhanding someone with a palm, calling someone baby sister instead of big sister, etc. Hopefully the future books are a bit more polished.

I still love the main characters and the family that they have created for themselves. I love how protective Fin is of Gin and vise versa. Jojo and Sophia are great and so supportive. Although, I am really starting to wonder about their back story and what they might be hiding.

The narration was great as usual. This was a fun book to listen to. Overall, I give Venom 4 stars. I look forward to starting book 4.

My brown eyes only rolled a little bit...

Got a question for you... what color are Gin's eyes? What are her knives made of? What is on her palms? I could go on with examples of descriptions that are repeated, over and over and over. And I'm not talking about repetition between books, but within this one book. Eyes aren't just eyes, they are violet or grey or blue or cold or hard or... well, they were never staring... but they were glazed in death I believe.

Most active eyes I've ever experienced, in this series, really.

That being said... if you can get over the repeated descriptions and Estep's penchant for listing things in threes ("chest, back, buttocks", "rape, torture, kill" and so on), this story was actually the best of the three. The pseudo-love angst from book 2 is just hinted at here, and Gin actually manages to kill someone(s) almost as planned and not by accident or by sheer luck. Almost as if she were a real assassin. Not quite, but almost.

I liked the "romance" in this installment - at least the guy this time is reasonable. And I liked the link to Gin's past. And the killing, murder and mayhem that runs through the whole book, with various victims, but always involving Gin in some manner.

There isn't much sex, and what there is was added to the end - but the non-stop action sort of explains that... hard to stop for some loving when you have a giant or two to kill.