Review | Ever After by Kim Harrison

Ever After
Kim Harrison
The Hollows #11
Published 22 Jan 2013 by Harper Voyager
Urban fantasy
4 stars

The ever after, the demonic realm that parallels the human world, is shrinking. If it disappears completely, so does all magic. It's up to witch-turned-daywalking-demon Rachel Morgan to avert catastrophe and keep life from changing... for the worse.

While saving the world is important, it isn't Rachel's only motivation. There's also the small fact that she caused the ley line to rip in the first place, setting off a chain reaction of unfortunate events. That little mistake has made her life forfeit unless she can fix it. It's also made her more than a few enemies, including the most powerful demon in the ever after—a terrifying entity who eats souls and now has an insatiable appetite for her. He's already kidnapped her friend and goddaughter to lure her out, and if Rachel doesn't give herself up soon, they'll die.

But Rachel has more than a few impressive and frightening skills of her own, and she isn't going to hand over her soul and her life without one hell of a fight. She's also got a surprise: elven tycoon Trent Kalamack. With this unlikely ally beside her—a prospect both thrilling and unnerving—she's going to return to the ever after, kick some demon butt, rescue her loved ones... and prevent an apocalypse before it's too late. Or, at least that's the plan...

Contains some inevitable spoilers for previous books in the series. Spoilers for Ever After are hidden and can be seen by highlighting the indicated text.

Bite-Sized Review
Although it had a few issues, Ever After was a highly enjoyable read and a good continuation of the series.

Chocolate (things I liked)
-They finally had to deal with the leaking ever after. That's been going on for about three books and it's about time they did something about it.

-Relationships in this series are always changing. I love that as the characters change, they don't just stay in the same roles; sometimes they grow apart, sometimes they grow closer, sometimes their opinions of people change. That's really one of the best things about this series.

-The pacing of this book was, for the most part, excellent. There was always something happening, some new escalation of the crisis, but it was all related, with virtually nothing extraneous or irrelevant. Even if I didn't know there were only two more books, it would be clear from the way things are starting to wrap up, which is good.

Brussels Sprouts (things I didn't like)
-Rachel has this incredibly annoying habit in the last couple books of thinking that she has to do something important, never actually doing it, and then thinking the same thing again 50 pages later, not as a reminder, but as if she hadn't already had the same thought 50 pages ago. I don't know if this is just sloppy editing or what, but it's getting increasingly irritating.

-Rachel also spends far too much time making her head Drama Central, thinking constantly about her feelings for Trent, her relationship with her friends, her relationship with her enemies, and so on. It's just too much. [highlight to view spoiler] I thought it was strange that, amidst all that, she spent surprisingly little time worried about Ceri and Lucy. Of course, she was concerned, but she seemed more worried about Bis than about her infant goddaughter. And she seems slightly confused as to which disasters are her fault and which aren't. It's like she gets them backwards.

-[highlight to view spoiler] I was not a fan of the very end of the book. If you can only declare your attraction for someone after drinking half a bottle of wine (and we've all heard "no really, I'm not drunk!" too many times in our lives to believe you), then you're clearly not ready for any kind of romantic relationship. That was not the way to have Trent and Rachel kiss for the first time in uncontested reality.

Recommended for
Fans of the series.

Quality: Acceptable
Enjoyability: Excellent