Adult Review: Black City by Christina Henry

Black City (Black Wings #5) by Christina Henry

Paperback, 288 pages

Published: Feb. 26th, 2013 by Ace

Source: Publisher

 

Do not read this description if you haven't read the series! The review below is spoiler free though.

 Former Agent of death Madeline Black may have been stripped of her wings—but she hasn’t lost her purpose…

When Maddy finally killed her father, Azazel, she thought his depraved experiment died with him. But now Chicago has been infested with vampires immune to the effects of the sun, and the bloodbath is worse than she could have ever imagined. While the Agency refuses to interfere with other supernatural courts, Maddy is determined to do everything within her power to save her city—wings or no wings.

But when the leader of the vampires requests that she turn herself in or risk more deaths, Maddy becomes a target for the very people she’s trying to save. Left with no other choice, she turns to Lucifer, the one creature who has the power to help her. But her grandfather’s aid has always come at a price…

Spoiler free for the series.
 Here we are at book #5 already and I just started reading the books last year.  For me that's pretty good.  And the fact that I read them diligently when they come out without fail speaks volumes about the series.  Yep, I absolutely love Madeline Black and her insane life.  Also, these books come out at 2 a year (total win!).

These books are constant action, there's no down time at all.  It's always one crazy catastrophe after another.  And Christina Henry is not afraid to push things all the way.  People die and bad things happen, but still there's always this bit of lightness thrown in.  The banter between Maddy and her gang always puts a smile on my face and lightens these precarious situations.   Maddy has a snarky gargoyle who has a penchant for food and sarcasm.  He's hilarious but he's always in Maddy's corner.  Well, almost always...  And the 'boys' Maddy has taken in, or been forced to take in, are always there by her side ready to battle the bad guys.  With wit and snark thrown into every situation I find myself giggling even while nearly falling off the edge of my seat waiting to see if they survive, yet again.

This book reveals some stuff that we've been really wondering about.  I don't think this is spoilery for the series, but we find out who, or what, exactly Puck is.  Maddy also goes through some major changes.  There's a bit of romance coming into the picture (yeah, we kinda saw that one coming...) and I'm not hating it.  I actually love that characters that were once the 'bad' guys may not always be the 'bad' guys.  That things change, people change.   There's a touch of drama at the end that kind of had me saying 'WHAT?!' and then a pretty big cliffhanger that had me groaning out loud.  I became a tad annoyed with the same arguments happening (Maddy rushing into danger to save innocents when she should be saving her own hide, yeah, it's an old argument) and the rehashing of things was mildly annoying.  However, I feel like things progressed quite a lot in this book and for the most part I'm happy with how it's going. 

I know this isn't a series for everyone, but I love it!  And it reminds me a bit of Kim Harrison's Hollow's series (or Rachel Morgan) but is much lighter (well, size wise) and quicker.  These books only take a day for me to read when most adult UF books take me two or more.  I like being able to cruise through, especially since they are so hard to put down!

 Disclosure: I received this book free of charge for review purposes.  All opinions expressed are my own and I was not paid or influenced in any way.