Spider's Bite - Jennifer Estep

Two things made this book fun:

 

  1. 1. The main character Gin is refreshingly amoral - no endless recriminations about "does being an assassin make me a bad person?" - no "only I can save the world" delusions - just a survivor doing the best she can and mostly putting herself first.

 

  1. 2. The spirited reading by Lauren Fortgang that brings Gin to life. She did a great job of helping me get more out of the prose.

 

The book is firmly in the urban fantasy with a kick-ass heroine territory but it has a few ideas that make it stand out and it's clearly built to be a series with a well thought out world.

 

I did find it odd that the most feared assassin the business manages to get through this novel without actually assassinating anyone.

 

The male love interest is not as interesting as he needs to be. Perhaps Gin will do better in the next book or he will do something that demonstrates why she finds him so attractive.

 

A good piece of genre fun that may build into a memorable series.

 

I've already downloaded the next book.