Review – Widow’s Web by Jennifer Estep

Publisher: Pocket Books
Publish Date: Out today
How I got this book: ARC from the author

I used to murder people for money, but these days it’s more of a survival technique.

Salina’s playing a mysterious game that involves a shady local casino owner with a surprising connection to Owen. But they call me the Spider for a reason. I’m going to untangle her deadly scheme, even if it leaves my love affair hanging by a thread.
This blurb came from Goodreads.

I am a huge Estep fan so when I had the opportunity to get an ARC of Widow’s Web, I leaped on the chance. Once again my eagerness was completely rewarded. Throughout the previous books I learned a lot about Gin, her past, her struggles and her motivations. I knew Owen had a past as well – I mean he didn’t flinch about Gin’s assassin profession, but this was the first time I was able to see beyond his self-made persona. It was amazing to learn where he came from and to just see the strength of will it took to get where he was when I first met him.

Poor Gin hasn’t been able to catch a break after she started recovering from her final battle with Mab. You would think that people would be too busy trying to grab a piece of Mab’s former pie then to go after Gin, but that hasn’t been the case. On top of having to watch for wannabe assassins, a woman who was part of Owen’s past has re-appeared , complete with a grip on Owen’s emotions. As a result Gin was already unsettled when she was hired to cater a party for a local casino owner, Kincaid, who is not on Owen’s good side. At that party, things became extremely serious for not just Gin and Owen but also for Kincaid and Eva and the relationships between the four of them, with Salina, right in the mix.

Widow’s Web raised the stakes higher then the previous books because it became obvious that Gin had some increasingly tough decisions to make. No longer is she the unattached assassin taking jobs while going after her arch nemesis but she now has emotional entanglements. Those entanglements didn’t come with a clean slate blank history and just materialized on the spot, but are people just as complex with their own pasts’ like Gin has. Gin had to balance her personal dislike of Salina with her observations of various events while adding in the stark difference between Eva’s reaction to Salina compared to Owen’s reaction.

I loved how Estep was able to show the emotional cores of her characters while still keeping everything I had picked up from them in early books intact. I think this installment really fleshed them out because they all had other facets and flaws. I can’t talk a lot about the plot because that would constitute a serious spoiler and I think this book is best experienced along with the characters not from an all-knowing distance. Some rather interesting twists were included along that make me thing the following books are certainly going to continue to pack a punch. When I finished reading and I was able to take a deep breath and uncurl my fingers I was extremely glad to read the snippet for the next installment. I am looking for some resolution on a few things.

As I stated in the beginning, Widow’s Web was a great addition, number seven, to the Elemental Assassin series. Estep kept the suspense and emotional stakes extremely high. This was a great way to keep my interest in the lives of Gin and those she interacts with since the death of Mab. I don’t suggest that you start this right before you go to bed or if you have to take care of something because you will not want to stop reading.
I give Widow’s Web an A

Links to Purchase:
Amazon | Kindle | BN