Review: Another similar release in this series, but for a great Main Character
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 14, 2013
I started reading this when it came up earlier this year as a sequel, and around the 40% mark I stopped reading, so I could wait until it was finished.  Honestly, I think that I'm just not that good at reading serials unless they're the never-ending kind, because I'm not that good at waiting, and no matter how good the book is I eventually lose interest having to wait.  Still, I'm glad that I got to read the beginning of this when I did back in January, because it made me instantly fall in love with Jackie Black, gunslinger and man of charming words ;)  And that meant that I was really excited to see how his story ended.Jackie Black, youngest in the long line of gun-slinging cowboy sorcerers is in love.  He's had a rough ride of it in the past, but he thinks that Roman is the one -- enough to move from his long-time home in the country and live in the city.  When he surprises Roman after Roman canceled their date to tell him the happy news, that he's househunting closer, he finds a complete surprise that ruins their relationship irreparably.  Now, Jackie is alone in a strange city he doesn't know well with nowhere to stay.But the cowboy Blacks have a way of stumbling across trouble, and they're duty bound as honest men to help in any way they can.  So when Jackie meets a old man who is on the hunt after a ruthless woman stealing power he does everything he can to help.  What he doesn't know is that by getting to know the old man, he stumbled into an even larger and longer unsolved mystery involving the old man himself, a scarred vampire, and his father, the Black before him (currently off who knows where and not returning his calls).  Backing down would be better -- it seems that everyone who has gotten involved over the years has been killed off -- but Jackie's honor won't let him.  And maybe a touch of stubbornness that says that whatever impossible creature is picking off the people around him, he hasn't met a sorcerer like Jackie Black yet.Really, the best thing about this book is Jackie.  He's such a great character that you can't help fall in love with him.  He's straight out of the old west, honor and stubbornness and all, trying to fit into a modern magical world.  He's almost comical at first until you really see his human side, and after that it's so easy to get swept up in his adventure.  I must admit that because I read the first bit of this as serial and then stopped I was under the misimpression of who Jackie's love interest in this was.  At first, I was a little miffed, but it's only because it had been around 7 months that I'd been thinking he ended up with someone else, and I just hadn't read that part of the story yet.  But it didn't take long for me to see that his real love interest here fit him so much better.  I only hope that the really interesting character that latches onto him earlier in the book (and isn't, of course, his love interest) will get his book, because I was a little sad that he seemed to disappear a bit after the halfway mark.  We didn't get to see him as much, even though I found him really endearing and one of the most interesting characters so far in this series.  It makes me wonder if Megan Derr does have plans for him later in the series because he's such a puzzle that never get's solved in this book.Fans of the series will want to continue and read this book.  Honestly, it wasn't my favorite, no matter how much I loved Jackie.  I'm finding that even though I've enjoyed the last couple of books in this series I don't have the same feelings as I had about the first three, which I just really loved and have read over and over.  I'll always continue to read, because even if Megan Derr's books don't turn out to be ones that I want to buy in paperback and keep as a comfort read, they're still enjoyable, fun and a great escape.  They're some of the easiest and most comforting reading for me, and that only makes me even more excited for the next books to come.