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Spider's Bite (Elemental Assassin, #1)

Jennifer Estep

Start date: January 1, 2017

Finish date: January 31, 2017

Discussion: Challenges: What's the Rush

Why we're reading this: Part of our group series (re)read: Elemental Assassin …more
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Challenges: What's the Rush

* 2025 Series Read: K.N. Banet's "Jacky Leon"
By Steph , Serious series addict · 89 posts · 31 views

last updated Aug 30, 2025 10:39PM

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* YEAR-LONG CHALLENGES
By Steph , Serious series addict · 1 post · 389 views

last updated Aug 17, 2010 11:14PM

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What Members Thought

Aug 30, 2010 AH rated it really liked it

Shelves: urban-fantasy, vampires, own, zzread-feb2011, first-in-series

Urban fantasy books are often saturated with the kick ass, snarky heroine, the requisite love interest, the paranormal creatures, cool weapons, and the evil bad guy or gal. Yes – this book has all that, but it felt like it had more. Set in the corrupt town of Ashland, Tennessee, Spider’s Bite has a dirty, gritty feel.

Gin Blanco is known as The Spider, a female assassin. She is extremely good at her job and is well compensated for her skills. Gin has standards, a kind of moral code. She does not Urban fantasy books are often saturated with the kick ass, snarky heroine, the requisite love interest, the paranormal creatures, cool weapons, and the evil bad guy or gal. Yes – this book has all that, but it felt like it had more. Set in the corrupt town of Ashland, Tennessee, Spider’s Bite has a dirty, gritty feel.

Gin Blanco is known as The Spider, a female assassin. She is extremely good at her job and is well compensated for her skills. Gin has standards, a kind of moral code. She does not kill children or the innocent.

I liked the originality of this book. While there are vampires in this book, their abilities are not really expanded upon, except that they seem to heal quickly. There are also giants and dwarves. There are also people that can control elemental magic – from air, fire, stone, ice, etc. Gin is an elemental. She has the ability to use stone and ice magic. While stone and ice are not the most powerful elemental magics out there, it is hinted that Gin has some extraordinary powers. I would have liked to have had more information on these elemental magic practitioners – How did they get the magic? Were they born with it? Can they learn it?

The world building in this book was intriguing. Basically, it felt like our world but with paranormal elements. Gin lives in a corrupt city which is policed by a corrupt police force. Even the organized crime elements felt like a paranormal mafia.

Our heroine Gin Blanco comes from tragic circumstances. Her family died in a fire, leaving her homeless. She is “found” by Fletcher, who gives her odd jobs in exchange for food. She later becomes an assassin and Fletcher acts as her handler. I found Fletcher to be a most interesting character, even though he was not around for most of the book.

I liked all the people that surrounded Gin. Finnegan Lane (Finn), Fletcher’s son was a wonderful character. I so wanted Gin to be his love interest, but it was not happening. Finn was a great supporting character.

I had trouble believing the attraction between Gin and Donovan Craig. I did not like the way that Donovan treated Gin. I found that his character fell flat for me because of his condescending attitude towards Gin, even though he was alive because of her.

The villain was especially evil and scary. I enjoyed the mystery of figuring out who she was and I was pleasantly surprised when I had guessed wrong. I loved the ending and it made me rush out to find the next book in the series Web of Lies.

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Oct 05, 2011 Ruby Jo rated it really liked it

I have to admit I was a little torn with the rating. If I had to be honest, the "real" rating is somewhere between 3.5 cups and 4 cups. Not that I didn't enjoy the book, I did. A lot. But then there were the tweaks. But I'm getting ahead of myself, so let's start at the beginning, with Gin.

I liked Gin. There's this trend with Urban Fantasy: every female assassin is afraid, deathly afraid and scared spitless before and during a fight scene. I was SO glad Gin isn't like that. Yes, she has the heal I have to admit I was a little torn with the rating. If I had to be honest, the "real" rating is somewhere between 3.5 cups and 4 cups. Not that I didn't enjoy the book, I did. A lot. But then there were the tweaks. But I'm getting ahead of myself, so let's start at the beginning, with Gin.

I liked Gin. There's this trend with Urban Fantasy: every female assassin is afraid, deathly afraid and scared spitless before and during a fight scene. I was SO glad Gin isn't like that. Yes, she has the healthy, normal dose of fear or apprehension. But it's not overwhelming, it's not constant and it's not paralyzing. She also kicks major ass, which I liked. And she's a smart girl. She's not what I'd call funny, but she is entertaining.

Speaking of funny, Finn is hilarious in my opinion. Or maybe my sense of humor is just that twisted. He's a great character and I have a feeling there are many, many great things he'll do in the future books. I sure hope he doesn't die by the end of the series *pouts**crosses fingers*.

Here's what makes my rating go down. First, Donovan Caine, detective and potential major hottie. While he's an ok character, he's not what I'd call hot. He has too many prejudices. He seems way too judgmental for my tastes. I like to think there's more than meets the eye. Some dark secret. Some childhood trauma that makes him the way he is. I'm not talking about his sense of justice, that's fine. But about his "criminals are bad, cops are good" thinking. I felt like up until the end, he tired so hard to keep thinking that all cops are good and that no cop can be corrupt, even when everything showed differently. And I think Gin proved that even though she's an assassin, she has morals, codes and lines she won't cross. But even so, Donovan kept thinking she's bad and ruthless and every target she ever had was innocent.

The second thing that bothered me (a lot I might add) was the repetition. I've noticed it in numerous scenes throughout the book. How certain expressions were identical and were being used in similar scenes. (I'll have a button at the end of this post if you want to read more and are not afraid of spoilers, so if you want to know what I'm talking about, push the button.) They just bugged me, enough to make me want to skip a few paragraphs. And I have a high tolerance for this things.

I also kept hoping we'd get a scene with the towns "bogey woman", Mab Monroe. I want to see what she can do, how bad can she get.

Bottom Line: I enjoyed reading this book and the good parts far outweighed the not so good parts. I'll keep reading the series, as I'm very curious if Gin will find out what happened when she was a kid and who killed her family.

(view spoiler) ...more

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Oct 02, 2010 Vivian rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-2010, first-in-series

This is a great first book. Loved Gin, she's a strong female heroine who is absolutely unapologetic about who she is and what she does, is fiercely loyal to those she loves, and is a pretty much kick butt character. The story was intriguing, Estep's world and concept of elemental powers is something I'm interested in reading more about in future books, and I found it easy to fly through the book.

A couple of things that I didn't love:
1. A lot of the descriptions are repetitive - a lot of bad gu ...more

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Apr 22, 2011 Tammy rated it it was amazing

This was an AMAZING book. I didn't want to put it down. I will warn that its very violent and not for the squeamish. I loved the action and fast way the plot moved forward. The characters were all very well developed and interesting. I liked the small romantic twist thrown in, I really liked that It didn't overpower the story line . Highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a dark ,fast paced read in urban fantasy. ...more

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Aug 29, 2010 Cat rated it really liked it

Really enjoyed this book. I liked the amount of action and the main character kicks ass. There is just enough history given on her background and I like the other characters alot as well. I have ordered the second on in the series and am looking forward to reading it. Theres some hot sex scenes too . I liked it.

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