Adult Review: Pale Demon by Kim Harrison

Pale Demon (The Hollows #9) by Kim Harrison

Hardcover, 439 pages

Published: Feb. 22, 2011 by Harper Voyager

Source: Gifted

Condemned and shunned for black magic,Rachel Morgan has three days to get to the annual witches’ conference and clear her name, or be trapped in the demonic ever-after . . . forever after.

But a witch, an elf, a living vampire, and a pixy in one car going across the country? Talk about a recipe for certain disaster, even without being the targets for assassination.

For after centuries of torment, a fearsome demon walks in the sunlight—freed at last to slay the innocent and devour their souls. But his ultimate goal is Rachel Morgan, and in the fight for survival that follows, even embracing her own demonic nature may not be enough to save her.

Spoiler free for the series-
I LOVE Rachel Morgan/The Hollows.  It's one of my all time most favorite UF series out there.  And I can't believe I got so far behind on them!  It started out intentional, I just didn't want the books to ever end.  I got nervous that if I keep up with the series then they'll end and be no more and with being a couple behind then I know when the last book is released then I still have some to read more.  I didn't mean to get so far behind though and that I can blame on the review books I keep accepting.

Diving back into this world was like visiting old friends.  The world, the characters, it all came back to me.  I don't think there's much I have actually forgotten even though it's been a couple years since I read one of these books.  The only issue I have is that it has started to blend together so I can't always remember the consecutive order, which wasn't really a big deal. 

The characters in these books are complicated and crazy.  I love how enemies can end up being the one to save Rachel's butt.  I love how I can hate one character with every fiber of my being at one point in the book and another point I'm totally loving them and hoping that Rachel will make out with them.  There's just so much complicated stuff, you never can guess where things will go.  And Rahel is still out trying to save people (and non-people) even when they deserve to die, so there's that as well...

I get emotional with these books because things end up always being so UNFAIR for Rachel.  People treat her like crap and it makes her super angry, but yet she'll still go out of the way, at risk of herself, to SAVE them!  She's a complicated girl.  And I love her for it.

If you haven't read this series yet, DO.  I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend!

For those who have read the series through this book, you can read the following bit, if you haven't read them yet, STOP because SPOILERS ahead!

I was really pleased to see some advance in Rachel and Trent's 'relationship'.  Trent managed to infuriate me PLENTY but when I found out what he was up to I was much like 'awwwww' and now I love him again.  He's still a bit of an idiot though. ;) 

AL!  I'm kind of starting to love Al.  And Newt. Now I'm just curious to see where things go with them.

I love Jenks SO much and I was glad that he kind of got away and got to occupy his mind with something and not sit at home in grief.  And Bis, wow, he wasn't as present as I would have liked, but I was SO pleased with what he ended up doing.  Ivy- I'm not sure what to think about her.  I don't fully understand what is going through her head.  And Pierce, even though he thoroughly pissed me off, he totally made up for it.  Kind of love him again but am relieved with where the romance went.

The end.  Oh goodness.  I'm not sure what to say/think about the end.  I think Rachel is making a huge mistake, but I'm dying to know what happens next.  Guess it shouldn't be such a long wait until I read the next book cause I'm pretty much dying to read it NOW!

One niggling issue I had, and I'm not sure if it's just this book or something I've just overlooked in the past, but the dialogue sometimes is hard to follow.  A lot of it is like assuming that people know stuff and so they don't always say what they mean and then when they do it doesn't always make sense.  I guess I found myself having a hard time following the dialogue at times.  It was partly the fast pace as well.  It's not a big issue, but something that I kept thinking about while reading.