Review: A Perfect Blood (The Hollows #10) by Kim Harrison ★★★★★

New York Times bestselling author Kim Harrison returns to the Hollows with the electrifying follow-up to her acclaimed Pale Demon!

A Perfect Blood

Ritually murdered corpses are appearing across Cincinnati, terrifying amalgams of human and other. Pulled in to help investigate by the I.S. and FIB, former witch turned day-walking demon Rachel Morgan soon realizes a horrifying truth: a human hate group is trying to create its own demons to destroy all Inderlanders, and to do so, it needs her blood.

She's faced vampires, witches, werewolves, demons, and more, but humanity itself might be her toughest challenge yet.

Review:

Wow! What a fantastic read!

A PERFECT BLOOD has absolutely everything you have come to expect from a Hollows novel: humour, mystery, magic, romantic elements, danger, adventure, friendships and so much more.

A lot of series would be losing steam and momentum by their tenth book. Not so for The Hollows. Instead, it feels more like Kim is finally getting to have a bit of fun by letting some of the seeds she's been sewing come into fruition and it marks some exciting changes on the horizon, as well as some potentially sad and poignant ones.

The characters in this series are some of the most diverse and interesting I have ever come across. And any writer that can make me go from hating a character in one book, to having me jumping up and down in fangirl excitement every time he steps on the page in recent books, has my utmost respect. Yes, of course, I am talking about the delectable, incorrigible, part-time businessman, part-time badass, all the time pain in the ass, Trenton Aloysius Kalamack. There is yet more development of his character in this book, as if the huge steps he made in the previous one, Pale Demon, weren't epic enough. This time we get to see Trent when he's relaxed, Trent when he's having fun, Trent when he's furious and many other Trent's that we haven't ever seen before because they were hidden underneath his professional façade of political bullshit. I loved every single one of his scenes in this book and I'm so excited to see what else Ms. Harrison has up her sleeve for the elf you love to hate and hate to love.

The rest of the supporting characters were excellent too, of course. We saw all the usual faces and returned to many familiar settings which was nice after the departure we took in Pale Demon. Rachel is back in her church trying to lay low and take some much needed me time after the hell she went through four months ago. She's also got a new bodyguard- a Were named Wayde, whom I thought was an okay addition to the cast, and who now lives in her belfry. We also saw quite a bit from David and, if anything, this is probably the character and relationship I understand the least. I think from what I've read on Kim Harrison's website, the werewolf angle was something she would have liked to have addressed in more detail, but decided against it when she plotted out the Demon/Elf/Witch story arc for the remaining books. So now David feels a bit surplus to requirements within the series. I was glad to see she got her werewolf tattoo sorted out, but it had a definite "tying up loose ends" feel to it.

Jenks has some great moments and one-liners as always. Still worshipping the almighty Tinkerbell in all of her red-thonged glory. There wasn't a great deal of Ivy and it's made clear that Rachel feels they might be drifting apart. I wish I could say that really, really bothers me, but to be brutally honest, their relationship has always seemed to have an unhealthy balance to me, so I'm glad Ivy is moving on a bit and isn't quite so focused on Rachel. That doesn't mean Rachel is happy about it, though. It's more like something that she has accepted as inevitable but still finds very sad.

There were a few more new characters introduced as well but I shall leave them for you to discover yourself. They were very intriguing, though. As was the mystery plot. There was truly not a dull moment throughout.

There may be a slight upset for Al fans as he has very little screen time in comparison to others, but for me, again, this wasn't so much of a problem because I'm all about the elf.

Altogether, a wonderful addition to the series. Easily Pale Demon's equal and one I look forward to re-reading again next year while I wait impatiently for "Ever after" to come out in early 2013.