I love Kelley Armstrong's Otherworld series. This is the twelfth entry into the series, almost all of which are the linked first person stories of various women of different supernatural "races," including a werewolf, witch, angel, necromancer, and half-demon. Almost all of these books stand alone, and though you might learn some plot spoilers for earlier ones in the bunch, they're all pretty self-contained, with you not needing to read earlier ones to get what's happening and with a satisfying resolution.
That wasn't the case with the last book in the series, Waking the Witch featuring witch Savannah Levine and it isn't the case with this sequel. That aspect made Waking the Witch my least favorite outing in the series to date, all the more because it left me with a cliffhanger in the very last sentence with the loss of Savannah's magic that left me wanting to hurl the book against the wall. This one, the second in the trilogy, didn't similarly leave on a cliffhanger, and I liked watching Savannah grow (and grow up) when forced not to use magic as a crutch, but it notably left major plot-lines unresolved for the next book. This book reads more like the build-up to a supernatural war, than a novel complete in itself.
I wouldn't call this a standout among the series. I fell in love with Paige Winterbourne and Lucas Cortes of the third and fourth books, and some of the other novels even evoked tears from me (and five star ratings). This latest novel is engrossing however. Armstrong writes in a clean style, features strong world-building, and writes characters that after a dozen books feel like old friends to me. I really loved seeing not just Paige and Lucas but Hope, Clay, Jaimie, Jeremy, Elena, Cassandra... This is fast-paced with lots of action, and I read this in a few hours in almost one sitting. And I certainly will be picking up the next book. Given I feel LK Hamilton has long become unreadable, and Charlene Harris lost the spark of her early Sookie books, and other current urban fantasy series have left me underwhelmed, I'd name Armstrong's Otherworld series as my favorite still-currently-publishing fantasy series. (Though from what I just read in other reviews--the next book in the series will be the end of the series. *sob* I hope it goes out with a bang! From where this left off, it sure has the potential to.)
