Book 61: Black Magic Sanction

Black Magic Sanction was one of those rare books where I went from really couldn’t decide how I felt about it for over a third of the book and then found myself really wrapped up in the narrative. I think that starts to show the real pull to the Kim Harrison novel.

I’m wicked behind in The Hollows series. It’s book eight in the series but my first attempt at the series. So there was a lot of stuff that has happened in the past and the universe was a little cloudy for me.

Rachel Morgan’s life basically got far worse then she could have ever imagined. Basically she’s given two options: let the coven take her and give her a lobotomy/remove her ability to reproduce or fight for her life. Pretty easy choice in those terms. Although that does come at a cost, taking on a smut that comes with black magic and really trying to figure out your place in the world. Not to mention, her issues with men really come to play in this book.

Once I figured out the universe, I really got into the book. One particularly special and really well written moment was when Rachel shrunk down to be the size of a pixie to help out her friend Jenks.  It was special in that you could almost feel it happening to you. It’s doesn’t always happen to me to get caught up in the book like that.

The universe in this series is actually pretty cool. You got witches, elves, demons, pixies, fairies and even werewolves (somewhere in the background). Basically the demons and the elves went to war, they enlisted witches to help. After the war, the demons can’t reproduce until Rachel (a witch who can summon demon magic is healed by Trent’s dad an elf) who can potentially be the rebirth to the demon race. Demons area also trapped in the ever-after. Elves are basically in hiding in reality. Witches and pixies are out and known in reality and they shun/abhor any use of black magic. It makes your aura smutty. The coven hates smut yet it’s not beyond them to hire people who make their aura’s smutty.

I like how the characters weren’t black and white in this book. It’s full of grey for everyone. No one is good or bad (okay in this book Brooke really has no real goodness to her aside from her clean aura). It’s almost rare to see that in books. At least someone is pretty two dimensional. So I really applaud Kim Harrison for really playing with the characters and creating so much depth.