The Mage In Black by Jaye Wells

Synopsis from Goodreads.com
Sabina Kane doesn't have the best track record when it comes to family. After all, her own grandmother, leader of the vampire race, wants her dead. So when she arrives in New York to meet her mage relatives, the reunion puts the fun in dysfunctional. Not only is mage culture completely bizarre, but everyone seems to think she's some kind of 'Chosen' who'll unite the dark races. Sabina doesn't care who chose her, she's not into destiny. But the mages aren't Sabina's only problem. In New York's Black Light District, she has run-ins with fighting demons, hostile werewolves and an opportunistic old flame. Sabina thought she'd take a bite out of the Big Apple - but it looks like it wants to bite back.

My review:
Second book in the Sabina Kane series and whilst I thought it wasn't quite as action packed as the first one, I thought Sabina was developed much more as a character in this one.

Sabina meets her long lost twin sister in New York and the mages she has grown up with. Despite being twins, separated at birth, there are a few similarities between them, but many more differences. Sabina finds it hard to completely let go of her vampire upbringing and adopt the mage way of life instead. In one respect she has gone from living under one strict regime to another. Although her sister is supposed to be the leader of the mages, she only really holds that title by name; the real mage behind it all is Orpheus. He comes across as being a really strict, rule giving kind of guy and you can tell he doesn't trust Sabina at all.

Sabina seems to be under constant attacks from people trying to kill her for one reason or another, yet she's not 100% sure who is behind it all. She thinks it's her grandmother, the alpha vampire of the Dominae, but there's no real proof that she even knows where Sabina is.

Whilst visiting a local vamp bar, Sabina also bumps into a old vampire acquaintance, Slade. He convinces Gighul, Sabina's demon minion, to fight in his demon fight club and through the regular meetings Sabina starts to treat him more as an ally than an enemy, which does come in handy later on. I did love Sabina's first reaction to seeing him - a good smack in the face! Only a woman scorned could have made that mark sting!

Sabina does start her mage training and is slowly developing her skills, but her impatience and reluctance to get anything wrong soon irritates her. She knows she has to learn these skills if she stands any chance of fighting her grandmother, but at the same time, is almost convinced that her assassin skills are more reliable at the moment.

On a night out away from everyone and everything that's been getting her down, Sabina finally meets the one who has been sending others to kill her. She finds out the vampires and the Caste of Nod's plans and has to rush to the mages' defence to help in the battle. After losing many mages and overthrowing many vamps and their demons, Sabina runs around to find her sister Maisie, only to find an easel with checkmate scrawled on it in Maisie's blood. She knows exactly who has taken her and now vows to get her back!

Although Sabina isn't an incredibly easy character to like (sometimes her almost constant anger gets irritating), she does start to develop compassion and opens up to her emotions as well. You can see how her character grows throughout the book and she is growing up as an independent person, no longer needing someone to tell her what to do all the time.

I did miss the romance between Adam and Sabina that I was expecting after the end of the last book and beginning of this one. Adam appears only briefly in the beginning and again at the end, but there is definitely hope for them, although it also appears that Slade may be trying to vie for Sabina's affections as well, although she knows there's no future there. Gighul got the romance factor this time, which I thought was hilarious. He meets this Vanity demon in the fight ring - she's supposed to kill him, but instead of fighting they perform some kind of demon mating ritual instead. I was chuckling quite a lot at this scene and their romance is really quite sweet.

I actually thought this series was a trilogy, so was expecting it all to end in the next book, but there' another 2 books planned in their series, so maybe there's going to be more to it than I thought. I hope the next book is still as good as the first two.