Tami

1,5 stars. (And the half stars is for "I really liked this series once...")This was a disappointment.It was overall fairly well written and had the same cast of characters as the other books in this series.And this is all the good I can say about it.Here comes what I didn't like (stay tuned for the RANT), full of spoilers:The "constuction flaws" were so glaringly obvious in some parts that I just couldn't overlook it like I normally do - especially with Urban fantasy - for example my biggest peeve here: the cool and totally bad ass assassin is obviously so vain and stupid that she brings a few little knives to a gun fight. Aha.Very clever plan. OR you just hire a crew of talented snipers and take most of the evil enemy's crew if you're not a good marksman yourself. How does that sound for a plan? Gin is always said to be so cold, ruthless and pragmatic. Not choosing the most efficient weapon is simply stupid. Not cool, not clever, not pragmatic. Simply stupid.The same is by the way true for the bad guys: they simply don't end Gin when they had plenty opportunity. So Gin stays alive to fight another day, because the evil guys are exactly as vain and stupid as herself.Next point: Why oh why everybody waited to end the big bad evil guy, really why? He tortured Sophia and after her being rescued, he obviously continued to kill, rape and torture a bunch of innocent girls. Why wait so long to take him out? And again, why not hire some good snipers if Gin is unable herself and take him and his psycho sister out? I am aware that this wouldn't have made for 300+ pages, but it annoys me still.This whole story was so clumsily constructed, it hurts!One of the main problems in my opinion is, that Gin won against the BIG BAD ENEMY (Mab) early on in the series. And since Mab was supposed to be REALLY BAD ASS we are left with second string evil enemies. Which is unfortunate. In this installment, to up the ante on the bad assery of the evil enemies, there was a combining of fire elemental power to make it more interesting. Yawn.And now the next big show down will be with a long lost mysterious relative of Mab's. Double yawn.And what I really really disliked: This whole psyching herself up before a fight. How she totally focussed and became even more bad ass - just with focussing. Wow. That is so original, and so totally works in real life. Just concentrate enough - really, totally works, look at the little guy in the Darth Vader costume who made the lights in his Daddy's car shine with the power of the force...or not. At least this little guy was cute. Gin was just ridiculous. Yes, focus helps. But the whole "I become totally still" yada yada yada shit was so over-used here - it really made her look even more stupid. And believe me, that was no easy feat given all of the above reasons.Oh, and the thing between Owen and her got solved, too. Triple yawn.Rant over, good night.