Review: Pale Demon (The Hollows #9) by Kim Harrison

A wild journey of
black magic and
supernatural adventure.

Condemned to death for black magic and shunned, Rachel Morgan has three days to somehow get to the annual witches convention in San Francisco and clear her name. If she fails, the only way she can escape death is to live in the demonic ever after . . . for ever after.

Banned from the flight lists, Rachel teams up with elven tycoon Trent Kalamack, headed for the West Coast for his own mysterious business. But Rachel isn’t the only passanger along for the ride. Can a witch, an elf, a living vampire, and a pixy in one car survive for over 2,300 miles? And that’s not counting the assassin on their tail.

A fearsome demon walks the sunlight, freed after centuries of torment to slay the innocent and devour souls. But his ultimate prey is Rachel Morgan. While the powerful witch with nerves of steel will do whatever it takes to stay alive, even embracing her own demonic nature may not be enough to save her.
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I just started the series recently with the first book and loved it. When I got this book (#9) to review I had to skip the ones in the middle. I hate reading them out of order, although this was still a good story, so I'm going back and reading them all.

This series is a great combination of paranormal, romance, action and best of all - humor. Author Kim Harrison does a terrific job of creating strong women. Witch Rachel Morgan is the main character and with the help of her pixie friend Jenks, is off on another adventure. The road trip across the country is a riot as Trent and Ivy help create chaos. I thought my family was tough! Drama and action are soon thrown into the mix as they are being pursued by a variety of bad guys including a demon who eats living souls. Yum.

The characters are so interesting although I'm looking forward to finding out more of their back story and how they got to this point. There are obvious romantic connections and they're definitely complicated. But some loose ends are beginning to come together and the writing is excellent with several new plot twists.

I've read many 5 star reviews for this and several people have said it's their favorite Rachel Morgan book. Harrison does not slack off with the story line and intricate layers of the magical world have been built up throughout the series. I was missing out on that without reading the books in between but this was still very enjoyable. The ending has a good set up for book #10 next year.

I can't take it anymore...I'm off to read the rest of this series, right now!

Coming soon:
Hollows series graphic novel
7/12/11






Madison Avery series #3
late May or early June






Author site
Thank you to HarperCollins for a copy of this book to review.

Publisher: Harper Voyager (HarperCollins)
Release date: 2/22/11
Pages: 432
Price/format:$16.99/hardcover
Type: paranormal romance/urban fantasy