Audible Book Review: The Undead Pool: The Hollows, Book 12 by Kim Harrison

Rachel Morgan is a great character and I really enjoy listening to this series.

The Undead Pool: The Hollows, Book 12

Written by: Kim Harrison

Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin

• Length: 16 hrs and 13 mins
• • Series: The Hollows, Book 12
• Format: Unabridged
• Release Date:02-25-14
• Publisher: HarperAudio

Genre: Fantasy, Paranormal
My Rating: 4.75 of 5.0

Publisher's Summary
Number-one New York Times best-selling author Kim Harrison returns to the supernatural adventures of Rachel Morgan in the penultimate book of the Hollows series.
Witch and day-walking demon Rachel Morgan knows magic - earth, ley line, even the forbidden demon magic - and that knowledge has saved her life more than once. But now something - or someone - is attacking Cincinnati and the Hollows, causing spells to backfire or go horribly wrong while living vampires attack humans and Inderlanders alike.
The pressures build when the city is quarantined to contain the unreliable magic, and Rachel must stop the attacks before the undead vampire masters who keep the rest of the undead under control are lost and it becomes all-out supernatural war.
The only way to do so is through the ancient elven magic, but that carries its own perils - for magic always has a price, and gods do not come lightly when called.
©2014 Kim Harrison (P)2014 HarperCollinsPublishers

Review:
This is an intensely active series - always danger. There are strange waves of wicked magical energy reeking havoc in Cinncinnati and the Hollows. These are causing magical spells to backfire resulting in physical damage around the city. Strangely the waves seem to be following Rachel Morgan. Meanwhile the undead vampire masters, who control the younger living vampires, have all disappeared and the living vampires are beginning to attack humans and Inderlanders, including some of Rachel’s werewolf pack. Rachel isn’t a werewolf but she is a powerful witch and day-walking demon with a tie to the werewolves through her friend, David, the true Alpha leader.

Rachel has been working as security for Trent while Quinn is away with the girls, Lucy and Rae. Rachel and Trent have enjoyed working together as they dance around their mutual attraction. Trent wants one night with Rachel on a date instead of as security employee. Dangerous but tempting. They are clearly drawn to each other but Trent is expected to marry one of his own kind, a high elven society member, Elsbeth, the mother of Lucy.

As Rachel tries to help the authorities control the chaos in the community, elven leaders arrive with Elsbeth at Trent’s home. The elven leaders suspect that the wild magic may be coming from an elven goddess who is seeking to make contact through Rachel. The tension increases as one of the elven leaders betrays Trent by lying to Rachel, talking her into a ritual that turns out to allow the goddess a partial possession. Tiny bits of sentient energy move into Rachel threatening to drive her mad unless she can find a way to communicate and control them and stop the goddess from more destruction.

This is what I call a ‘high octane’ series! Rachel seems to be a trouble magnet but somehow, with the help of her friends - vampire Ivy, pixie Jenks, David and Trent - she manages to save the city and come out alive. I love the action intensity and the romantic tension that is finally developed in this book between Rachel and Trent. I wonder how Kim Harrison keeps coming up with great plots and I will look forward to the next adventure.

Audio Notes: Marguerite Gavin is a fixture for me with this series. She does such a good job and makes the series more enjoyable listening entertainment.

I purchased the latest installment of this good series with my Audible subscription.

Audio Book Review: Ever After, The Hollows, Book 11 by Rachel Morgan

This latest Rachel Morgan story is absolutely engaging and full of action and intensity.
Ever After: The Hollows, Book 11
    UNABRIDGED
    by Kim Harrison
    Narrated by Marguerite Gavin
        Series: The Hollows, Book 11

• Audible Audio Edition
• Listening Length: 18 hours and 36 minutes
• Program Type: Audiobook
• Version: Unabridged
• Publisher: Blackstone Audio
• Audible.com Release Date: January 22, 2013

Genre: Fantasy, Paranormal
My Rating: 4.5 of 5.0

The ever after, the demonic realm that parallels our own, is shrinking, and if it disappears, so does all magic. It’s up to witch-turned-daywalking-demon Rachel Morgan to fix the ever-after before the fragile balance between magic users and humans fails.

Of course, there’s also the small fact that she caused the ley line to rip in the first place, and her life is forfeit unless she can fix it. And that the most powerful demon in the ever after - the soul-eater Ku'Sox Sha-Ku'ru - has vowed to destroy Rachel, and has kidnapped her friend and goddaughter as leverage. If Rachel doesn’t give herself up, they will die.

Forced by circumstance, Rachel teams up with elven tycoon Trent Kalamack - a prospect fraught with dangers of the heart as well as betrayal of the soul - to return to the ever after and rescue those she loves.

Both worlds teeter on the brink, one on a possible interspecies war, the other for its very existence, and it’s up to Rachel to keep both from being destroyed.

Review:
Rachel is accused by the demons of tearing the ley lines and causing the leakage and shrinkage of the Ever After where the demons live. Rachel has been framed by Ku’Sox, an extremely nasty and powerful demon.  The other demons know that Ku’Sox is lying but they all fear him. Ku’Sox claims that he will deliver a cure to the demons through human babies he has been stealing although he really wants to destroy Rachel and the Ever After.  Rachel is sentenced to die in four days if she can not fix the lines. 

Ku’Sox needs Trent, the Elven business magnate, to help with the chemical research on the babies.  Ku’Sox steals Rachel’s Goddaughter -- Trent’s daughter-- Lucy. This puts more pressure on Rachel and Trent to either yield to Ku’Sox or find a way to defeat him.

Rachel begins to fix the lines with the help of her young gargoyle, Biz, and Trent, but Ku’Sox shows up and snatches them away. Rachel has to find a set of paired rings to keep her tethered as she tries to fix the lines. It turns out the pair she can get have a terrible history as slave rings that were once used by the Elves to keep the demons as slaves before the Elf-Demon War. The only way that Ku’Sox is going to be defeated is if Rachel can convince the Elves and demons to work together and if she can trust them not to betray her.

I loved the intensity, in fear and sorrow, of this story. Ms. Harrison’s imagination is wonderfully creative as she develops these plots and interweaves the many species! I liked the increased exposure in this episode to Newt, the ‘crazy’ female demon. This story introduces Biz’ father and a group of flying gargoyles, who are touting Biz as the ‘World Breaker’ and Rachel as his ‘Sword.’ The relationship between Trent and Rachel takes one passionate step forward but two practical steps back leaving the reader to wonder about their future. There are many older characters who are mentioned which helps to fill out some of the backstory. I enjoyed these bits of memory lane, but I did feel there were several unnecessary repetitions summarizing the current problems that Rachel was facing. The action wrapped me to a point where I didn’t want to put the book (or MP3 player) away.

If you are already a Hollows fan I think you will want to grab this latest book. If you haven’t read the series yet, I encourage you to start at the beginning and enjoy getting caught up.

Audio Notes: Once again Marguerite Gavin does a great job with the different voices and the emotional inflections. The accents range from Pixie high (Jenks) to base low (the gargoyles), New York to British. It surprises me how seamlessly Ms. Gavin makes the shifts from one voice to another. I get caught up and love listening.

I was glad to get this for review from Blackstone Audio through Audiobook Jukebox!