Review: Deadly Descendant by Jenna Black

Deadly Descendant by Jenna Black
Series: Nikki Glass #2
Published by Pocket
Published on: April 24th 2012
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 355
Format: Paperback
Source: Borrowed

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As a living descendant of Artemis the Huntress, private investigator Nikki Glass knows how to track someone down. But when an Oracle shows up, warning the Descendants about wild dog attacks in Washington, D.C., Nikki is afraid it might be a trap. The Olympians believe the “dogs” are really jackals, controlled by a blood-crazed descendant of the Egyptian death-god Anubis. Whatever. . . . If Nikki hopes to muzzle Dogboy, she’s got to catch him in the act. But when she stakes out a local cemetery, she ends up face-to-snout with a snarling pack of shadow-jackals whose bite is worse than their bark. These hellhounds are deadly—even for an immortal like Nikki. “Dog” spelled backward may be “god,” but that won’t stop Nikki from teaching these old gods some new tricks. Like playing dead.

Deadly Descendant proves without the shadow of a doubt that its author is brilliant.    And I am talking shining star tier.    It seems as I always say I will have to forget the last fifty or so pages that manage to miss the boat that the last three hundred were sailing me out on but before I get to that let me talk about what went right.

The paragraph in italics that serves as the epigraph was terribly confusing for someone who had not picked up this series in a couple months.    It is downright contradictory from a vocabulary perspective.    Immortals are being killed.    How does that happen?

Luckily once the action started rising, my understanding of this world came rushing back.    In many ways although this sequel takes place months after the first cut out, I do not feel as if I have missed much.    Nikki still cannot get herself situated in the midst of immortals.    She still fears for the safety of her foster sister and family.

These concerns are all well and good and Nikki’s character does gain a good juicy bit of depth but it will undoubtedly be her interactions with Jamaal that stay unforgettable.

I already knew having read the first part of this author’s series dealing with exorcists that she was not afraid to go into sexual territory I am not familiar with.    When it came to Jamaal however, a man who persistently accused Nikki of being a spy and even once upon a time entered into a parking lot fist fight, I did not anticipate the two would be becoming the best of buds.

And, for the most part, that hypothesis was not proven false.    Something resembling chemistry did, however begin bubbling.    The two would enter into conversations where Nikki would know full well if she pushed him any further he might explode and yet she would go there and he would not explode.    Note: as a practitioner of death magic and a descendant of Kali, it is expected for him to blow up easily.

Additional Note: The immortals in this world come from a wide range of pantheons with religions from Greece, India, and Northern Europe getting the star roles whereas as those from Japan, Russia, or Iran have yet to materialize; seriously you would think there were room for gods from all across the world but no dice as of yet.

Anyways to wrap up this review, I am expecting in the next book for Jamaal and Nikki to come achingly closer.    I will not rule out the possibility, though, that the author will take it as an opportunity to pull Nikki closer to another one of the many alpha males in this house.    Here’s hoping she keeps it conservative for once.

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