Spider's Bite by Jennifer Estep

This book was a really nice surprise in the paranormal genre. The paranormal element was pretty much in the background with some people having "elemental" powers such as being able to talk to rocks, control fire, wind, water, and such.

The main character is Gin, an assassin otherwise known as the Spider. Although this is the first book in the series Gin is not new to the assassination game. (Spoiler alert) Basically she is hired for a job, where her employer double crosses her and tries to have her killed. Her handler and adoptive father of sorts is murdered brutally instead. So she and her step-brother of sorts, Finn, decide to figure out what is going on. They end of having to joining forces with one of the only clean cops, Donovan Caine. Unfortunately Gin is responsible for killing Caine's old partner, but they call a truce for the time being since everyone else is trying to kill them.

It ends up that the group has to track the power plays through low level stooges and vampires until they realize that one of the sisters of a major company is a high powered elemental who is planning on taking on the biggest player in town, Mab Monroe. Mab is an extremely powerfully fire elemental who pretty much runs everything behind the scenes. Eventually there is a showdown between Gin and the air elemental with Gin just barely winning after she has to use both her rock and ice powers.

Overall the book is very well written with a fast moving plot and interesting characters. There is a quick sex scene between Gin and Donovan with Donovan feeling all angsty and confused about Gin and her profession. The assassination scenes are well thought out and brutal without being overly gory.

I am very much looking forward to reading more books in this series.

I like to rate books from 1 to 10 stars. Sometimes a low rating does not mean anything negative, it just may mean that there was not much of that type of content.

********- 8 stars for the characters
********- 8 stars for action
********- 8 stars for the overall plot
*****- 5 stars for romance and sex
********- 8 stars for violence and gore
-0 stars for werewolf content
**- 2 stars for vampire content
****- 4 stars for other supernatural creatures content
********- 8 stars for the overall book