Thursday, July 19, 2012

Deadly Descendant by Jenna Black [REVIEW]

Deadly Descendant
(Nikki Glass #2)
by Jenna Black
Summary from Goodreads:

"The second novel in a unique and action-packed urban fantasy series from the acclaimed author of the "Morgan Kingsley" series.

Once, Nikki Glass was an ordinary private investigator, running her own business in Washington, D.C. Then, her world turned upside down when she accidentally stole the immortality of a descendant of Hades. 

Now immortal herself, Nikki is plunged into the world of the Liberi Deorum, descendants of the ancient gods, discovering that she is descended from the goddess Artemis and has new supernatural abilities. While she still longs for the normal life she left behind, Nikki is now part of a team of immortals, led by the mysterious Anderson Kane, bent on making the world a better place. Which would be a lot easier if it weren't for the Olympians, a rival group of immortals who exploit their powers for their own benefit. In a strange twist of fate, the Olympians come to Anderson to ask for his--and Nikki's--help. The Oracle, a descendant of Apollo who is Olympian to the bone, has had a disturbing vision of a man with a jackal's head being captured by the government. This vision coincides with a rash of wild dog attacks that are terrorizing the city, and the Oracle believes her vision means these killings were perpetrated by a descendant of Anubis, the Egyptian god of death. It's up to Nikki and the rest of Anderson's team to track down and stop this serial killer before the authorities do. But the more Nikki investigates the crimes, the more she comes to suspect that the Olympians haven't told the whole truth, and the more terrifying the killer becomes..."

Rating:

Done with Deadly Descendant... hand me Rogue Descendant, please?! I need it right now!

This series just got better! I was already blown away by how awesome Jenna Black created Dark Descendant but Deadly Descendant just made things a lot more interesting.

(If you haven’t read Dark Descendant, skip to the next paragraph after this one because there will be spoilers). Nikki Glass got caught up in the world of the Liberi Deorum, descendants of ancient gods, after discovering that she is a descendant of Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, in Dark Descendant. Since she happens to be good at finding things (apart from having ridiculously good aim), Anderson, the leader of this Liberi team, gave her the task of finding his wife, Emma, who has been captured by the Olympians (a bunch of self-centered immortals who want all the powers of the gods to themselves).

Now in Deadly Descendant, Nikki is living in Anderson’s mansion along with Jamaal, Blake, Maggie and the rest of his team. To think that accomplishing the task [in Dark Descendant] is actually gratifying, but trouble doesn’t seem to want to leave Nikki alone. A descendant of the Egyptian god of death, Anubis, is going about town murdering innocent people and Nikki and the rest of the team must track him down and stop him from doing more damage.

I have to say thank you, Ms. Black, for not giving cliff-hangers on the end of these books but rather new stories to look forward to. Of course there are some unfinished businesses and some questions unanswered, and I’m sure there’s time for that and the scenes given at the moment suffices, but giving us a different plot for each book is just what I needed!

Speaking of plot, this was just incredible! This book is more eventful than the first book. So we have the main agenda of finding Anubis’ descendant which involved a lot of chasing and blood and all things crazy, as if a pack of jackals isn’t crazy enough already. Then we have this whole deal with the Olympians and their bitchy Oracle (sorry, I just had to get that out), and as if one bitch wasn’t enough we get, Emma who is a pain more than I can bear! Ugh!  Ah, yes, the life of Nikki Glass really couldn’t get any more messed up. Fun! Oh, Nikki, hang in there.

But it’s not all bad, you know. Jamaal is there! Oooooh... I totally approve! I love their stolen moments. Well, they didn’t actually try to catch some time for each other or anything, but the scenes they have together are just beautiful. Although a little of the tortured-soul-kind of moments but beautiful and sweet nonetheless. *sigh* I wish there were more but the thing is, I’m glad I’m only getting bits and pieces here because I finally get to see a love story that actually has “development”. The love-at-first-sight or soul-mates-true-love things are what I usually see in books so you won’t see me complain over this kind of change.

Reading Deadly Descendant is just like eating a piece of my favorite cheesecake (in this case I’ve already devoured two slices) when you want to eat the entire cake in one sitting; I can hardly wait for the next book to be released!