Review of Web of Lies

Web of Lies
Jennifer Estep
Simon & Schuster
400 pages
Gin Blanco formerly the acclaimed assassin known only as “The Spider” is enjoying her retirement, running The Pork Pit, trying to stay in sight of Donovan Caine and out of trouble. The problem is, trouble seems to find and follow her no matter what and it could be deadly.
Web of Lies is the second in Jennifer’s Elemental Assassin series. Gin’s had a lot on her mind since we last saw her, still reeling from the death of her adoptive father and mentor and still trying to find out who killed her blood family all those years ago. In this episode of the life and times of Gin Blanco she finds herself up close and personal with two of Mab Monroe’s thugs and they can mean only trouble at the least and her death at the most as she gets involved in two separate battles.
Jennifer continues her excellent series with Web of Lies where she lets her readers re-connect with all the characters that we’ve come to know and love or love to hate in the first novel Spider’s Bite. This plot is just as unique as the first as she takes her audience on a wild ride of adventure and terror. She does so with her imaginative, colorful narrative where even though this is an urban fantasy read she makes her readers believe her and what her characters do. Let’s talk about her characters, especially Gin who is an enigma herself, very complex, confusing and yet very believable, she’s also flawed which gives her more character in my eyes. Her co-starring cast is a small number of Gin’s friends and enemies and the story wouldn’t be complete without them. And then there’s the cast of many of her supporting characters who make the tale more interesting and entertaining. And entertain us is exactly what Ms. Estep does. This is definitely not a romance, but there is a love story from hell going on here with Gin and her pseudo beau detective Donovan Caine. It’s doomed from the start, but the romantics of us can’t help but hope. Donovan is such an engrossing character that she could easily build a storyline just on him and his complexity. Her love/sex scenes are very physical and descriptive.
So my friends Run, do not walk to your nearest bookseller and pick up, if you haven’t read it Spider’s Bite first and if you have Web of Lies. You will not be sorry. This is a first rate new urban fantasy series by the author of the Big Time series.