The Green Eyed Demon by Jaye Wells

Synopsis from Good reads.com
Things to do:

1. Rescue sister.
2. Murder grandmother.
3. Don't upset the voodoo priestess.

The clock is ticking for Sabina Kane. Her sister has been kidnapped by her grandmother, the Dark Races are on the brink of war, and a mysterious order is manipulating everyone behind the scenes.

Working on information provided by an unlikely ally, Sabina and her trusty sidekicks--a sexy mage named Adam Lazarus and Giguhl, a Mischief demon--head to New Orleans to begin the hunt for her sister. Once there, they must contend with belligerent werewolves, magic-wielding vampires and--perhaps most frightening of all--humans.

But as much as Sabina is focused on surviving the present, the past won't be ignored. Before she can save those she cares about most, she must save herself from the ghosts of her past.

My review:
This book is the best so far in the series! I totally loved it.

After kidnapping one of the Dominae vampires, Tanith, Sabina makes her way to the Queen Faery's court, where Tanith tries to set up a deal by giving Sabina the location of where her sister Maisie is being held, although she doesn't know the precise place. Will Tanith be honourable and keep to her end of the deal? I doubt it! But we'll have to wait and see!

Sabina is soon off on the trail to find her missing twin sister, kidnapped by their vampire grandmother during a big fight between the vamps and the mages at the end of The Mage in Black (Book 2 in this series). This trail takes her to New Orleans, where she has to find a friend of Rhea's, a human voodoo priestess and her faery cross-dressing drag queen friend. Initially Sabina is reluctant to trust a human, but gives in as she knows there is no other way that she will be able to trace Maisie if she doesn't accept Zen's help.

Sabina and Adam also meet a local werewolf, who gives her a lead to where some vamps might be staying, but instead vamps in the house, they find a pair of mages and some humans who are in a famous rock band together enjoying an orgy of sorts. Soon after they finished peeking through the windows they are attacked by a group of mages from the Caste of Nod. Immediately Sabina believes that the werewolf has betrayed her, but it wasn't her or her vampire contact.

Stryx the owl also follows Sabina around a lot and they eventually capture him and perform a spell of sorts on him in the graveyard to try and get Maisie's exact location from him. She gets some very bizarre comments from him and at the same time her Chtonic magic does something rather new and strange! On this same night Zen's magic store gets attacked and so does Brooks, the faery. Very badly attacked as well and Sabina believes it was the werewolf again, but it wasn't! It was the same people who attacked her and Adam before and she has an idea of who the leak might be. And her gut instinct was correct! Brooks reinvents himself as Pussy Willow and manages to get rid of the leak once and for all!

Sabina takes a sort of out of body vision quest in which she meets the ghost of David, her old vampire friend that she had to kill in the first book, who basically tells her that she has some very difficult decisions to make in the near future and whatever she does will have dire consequences. Through this vision she finds the exact location of where Maisie is being held, but before she can go and save her Sabina has to consult Orpheus, the leader of the mages and the faery Queen, who seems to take over the whole situation, giving out orders that no-one else really agrees to, but they have to accept because they need the faeries help.

Sabina does as she always does though, and doesn't follow the orders at all. She decides to save Maisie by herself and leaves everyone else behind. However, Adam soon works out her plans, follows her and after a bit of a heated argument goes with her to save Maisie, but it doesn't go exactly to plan! well you didn't expect it to really did you? That would have been a very boring ending to the story.

A huge fight entails and Sabina manages to save Maisie and eventually they all win! Yay!!! Can't say  any more without giving away any more details!

I loved how Sabina developed in this story. She finally gave into her emotions and she even manages to admit to Adam how she feels, using the big L word! I did wonder how much longer Adam would wait for her, and even though he was willing to give her time, I think she had to make a decision sooner rather than later, so she didn't keep stringing him along. I glad she didn't wait that long! Adam did annoy me at times. He's a Pythian guard and always will be, following orders to the letter, whereas Sabina does what she wants when she wants and Adam finds it hard to accept this in her. Even on the big fight night when Sabina goes off on her own, he throws a bit of a wobbly at her, despite knowing why she went off. I am glad they got together properly in the end though.

Giguhl wasn't as funny this time round though as he had been dumped by the Vanity demon. I don't really know the details as they weren't revealed as such in this book, but I do know there is a short novella about this episode out, but it's not yet available over here in the UK - why not?!!! It's not necessarily essential to this story though, but I do like knowing all the details! Giguhl does have some funny moments with Brooks, who provided lots of laughs instead. Gighul tends to be more serious and has lots of close moments with Sabina giving her advice on matters of the heart, which I thought was a lovely side to him, especially after the breakdown of his whirlwind romance!

Overall I totally loved this book. Glad Adam and Sabina got it together. Glad they found Maisie. Glad they got rid of the one who caused all this! Looking forward to reading the next one in the series, but I have to wait until January for the release!

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.

Red-Headed Stepchild by Jaye Wells

Synopsis from Goodreads.com
In a world where being of mixed-blood is a major liability, Sabina Kane has the only profession fit for an outcast: assassin. But, her latest mission threatens the fragile peace between the vampire and mage races and Sabina must scramble to figure out which side she's on. She's never brought her work home with her---until now.

This time, it's personal.


My review:

I read this book for the second time as I wanted to read the rest of this trilogy and have to admit that I didn't remember much of it until I actually read it. Does that mean I didn't especially enjoy it the first time round? I dunno, but I really enjoyed it this time! I did remember bits and bobs, like Giguhl and Maisie and Adam, but not really what happened.

So anyways...Sabina Kane is a half vampire, half mage, raised by her vampire grandmother to distrust anything or anyone who is not a vampire. Therefore, she has no idea of who her mage family are and has no mage training at all, even though she should have some magical abilities. She is an assassin by trade. Despite being the granddaughter of the alpha female vampire, the Domina of the Dominae, her mixed race does not allow her to hold any position higher than that of an assassin. Her mixed heritage is something Sabina has been constantly reminded of her whole life, made it feel like she would never quite be the vampire she should be because of her mage blood.

The starting line of the book made me giggle - "Digging graves is hell on a manicure..." Only a female vampire could come out with a statement like that! LMAO And you know immediately that she is not your prim and proper type of vampire if she's out killing people who need to be buried. At the beginning of the book Sabina has to kill her friend David, whom she is led to believe has turned into a traitor, told so by her grandmother, the alpha vampire. You can tell that Sabina doesn't really want to do it, but her loyalties lie with her vampire family and therefore she carries out the job as necessary.

Later on Sabina is told by her grandmother that she has to infiltrate a cult of sorts run by a half vampire, half demon, Clovis, who wants to take control of the vampire and mage races. Sabina seems to be making a headway start despite her instincts to not trust this demon vamp. He appears to trust and believe what she is saying and at times, she starts to believe some of the things he tells her as well, even though they go against things she has been told by her grandmother.

She is also being followed by a mage, Adam, who tells Sabina that her mage family has sent him to watch her, train her and eventually get her to meet them. She doesn't believe him at all to start with as she has always been told that her mage family disowned her at birth. Lots of contradictory evidence comes to light through out the book and many secrets are eventually revealed, some of which turn Sabina's world upside down.

Adam did send a demon to kill Sabina and he stabs her through the heart with an applewood stake, the only wood known to kill a vampire. However, it doesn't kill her; it hurts her like mad but she doesn't burst into flames like she should. Is this part of her mixed heritage? She tries to get rid of the demon before he racks up massive bills on her credit card from watching too many info-mercials and QVC type programmes, but only the summoner can return him. He takes cat form so as to blend in better with her new roommate and when Sabina tries to cast a spell on him, it turns him into a permanent hairless cat. He can no longer change forms. Sabina now has to ask the mage Adam for help in sending Gighul back to the demon realm.

A big fight ensues between the vampires of the Dominae and Clovis' cult with lots of back stabbing and double crossing going on. Sabina and Adam manage to get out alive and Sabina finally admits that she's kind of ready to leave her vampire family completely behind and make the next step forward to meeting her mage family, in the lead up to the inevitable upcoming war between the mages and the vampires.

I really enjoyed this book and loved Sabina's attitude and sarcasm. Her grandmother was a total control freak, but what do you expect from the leader of the vampires. I just don't understand why Sabina didn't wake up sooner to the way she was being treated by Lavinia, but then I guess when you've been brainwashed from birth, you just don't question other people's behaviour. I am glad she did realise what was going on in the end though.

I totally LOVED Gighul's character - he was funny as a demon and even funnier as a hairless cat. I can just picture him walking round in a fluffy sweater and little booties chasing catnip toys around. I hope he makes another appearance in the next book.

There's definitely some attraction between Sabina and Adam and I would like to hope that it develops into something more in the next book as well.

Right on to the next book in the series then!