Despite dating one vampire and living with another, Rachel Morgan has stayed ahead of trouble until now. A serial killer stalks the Hollows, claims victims across society, and ignites a vicious Inderland gang war. Rachel hides an ancient artifact that could stop the killer or start a battle to the death among supernatural races of Cincinnati. Every action has its price. When the vampire master Piscary is set free and the demonic Algaliarept dares to walk openly under the sun, even Rachel Morgan can't hide forever.
MY THOUGHTS
For the love of all that is holy, can we please stop with the Rachel and Ivy storyline? It's extremely toxic. It’s not interesting and adds nothing to the overall plot except to frustrate the reader. The beginning of For a Few Demons More is bogged down by Ivy-related drama, which unfortunately overshadows what should be one of the main storylines; a murder investigation. It wasn’t until the final 20% of the book that things finally picked up and got interesting. But getting there was a drag.
I own most of the books in the series and feel somewhat obligated to read them, but with each new installment, my tolerance for the characters continues to dwindle. As I’ve mentioned in previous reviews, the only characters I’m remotely interested in are David and Trent, maybe Quen and Ceri now. Everyone else, Rachel included, has been disappointing. We’re five books in, and Rachel’s character development has stagnated or worse, regressed.
In this latest installment, we see that most people fear Rachel, assuming she works with demons (which, to be fair, she kind of does), and therefore believe she’s a powerful witch. Yet when it actually counts, like when Kisten was being attacked by vampires, Rachel failed to act in any meaningful way. Once again, she survives not through cleverness or growth but thanks to the help of others or sheer dumb luck. I don’t like Ivy, and when a supposedly climactic scene involving her came around, I didn’t feel anything. The prospect of losing her wasn’t upsetting and unfortunately, she’s still around.
I genuinely hope the next books improve, especially now that certain characters are (hopefully) out of the picture. I also hope Harrison removes Al from the narrative. I thought he was gone, yet here he is again. If there’s an endgame involving him, it’s not apparent. He adds nothing of value to the story. If you removed him entirely, the plot wouldn’t change...which says a lot.
At this point, my reviews of The Hollows series are starting to sound like a broken record. Nothing has improved, and the characters remain a hot mess. Rachel is always whining and crying. I started this series hoping for a mature urban fantasy. So far, it’s just not delivering.