Review: The Mage in Black by Jaye Wells
[Sabina Kane 2]
Sabina Kane doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to family. After all, her own grandmother, the leader of the vampire race, just tried to kill her. When she arrives in New York to meet the mage side of her family, the reunion takes the fun out of dysfunctional.
On top of that, the Hekate Council wants to use her as a pawn in the brewing war against the vampires. Her mission will take her into the bowels of New York’s Black Light district, entangles her in mage politics, and challenges her beliefs about the race she was raised to distrust. And Sabina thought vampires were bloodthirsty.
The Mage in Black is second in author Jaye Wells’ Sabina Kane series. I found the first debut novel, Red-Headed Stepchild, in one my late night searches through Amazon’s recommended readings. Red-Headed Stepchild was a favorite read of mine last year, so it’s only natural that I’d be racing to the bookstore to grab up her next edition.
Jaye Wells’ series is set in a world where vampires, mages, demons and faeries exist, but go mostly unnoticed by its human population. The vampires in this world are not undead but are living supernatural beings that are born, rather than made. They have a lot of the usual strengths and weaknesses of vampires but their origins, and their genetic red-hair, are linked back to original bible myth (they are the earthly descendants of Lilith and Cain) and as a result they have some weaknesses involving apples.
Sabina Kane has just left everything she knows behind her after being betrayed by her own grandmother, Lavina Kane, head of the vampire race. She’s now an ex-assassin for the Dominae on her way to New York with Adam Lazarus [the mage we met in Red-Headed Stepchild] to meet with her twin sister–that she only found about a week ago–Maise, High Priestess of her most-hated enemy, The Hectate Council of Mages. The product of a forbidden match and separated at birth, Sabina and Maise are half-vampire/half-mage and were brought up as complete opposites.
However, Maise has no intentions of letting the difference in their two worlds keep them apart. She has every intention of making Sabina feel welcomed. Sabina, though, isn’t adjusting to her new life and her lack of knowledge of the rules in New York quickly gets her into trouble. Mage politics and transgressions in the Black Light District are set to stir up things to make her look bad. To make matters worse, not all the mages are happy about her arrival. So, Sabina must trust the Hectate Council to search out the mage(s) responsible for the threats to her life, except their attention is already occupied elsewhere with the upcoming vote to go to war against the Dominae… and their delay just might get her killed.
The Mage in Black was a great entry in the Sabina Kane series. However, it was abundantly clear that this edition was a transitional novel, gearing up for the next in the series. There’s a lot of ‘down time’ while Sabina learns to wield her new mage skills. She meets up with a friend from the past and her demon familiar, Giguhl, fights in the ‘Demon Fight Club‘. Negotiations and preparations are made for the upcoming dark races war. Despite it’s lack of edge-of-your-seat, action-packed story like we got from the first book, it was still a satisfying read. We learn more about the mages and Caste of Nod. Sabina grows in character and power. Old characters come back to help Sabina, along with meeting some new friends. There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments that I’ve come to expect from Jaye Wells. I like this series and would recommend it to any urban fantasy reader. Though, if you hate cliff-hanger endings, I would wait for the Green-Eyed Demon when it releases March 2011, for it promises to be a non-stop thrill ride.
Sabina Kane
Red-Headed Stepchild-April 1, 2009
A Mage in Black-March 30, 2010
Green-Eyed Demon-March 2011
Find Jaye Wells:
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This book was purchased by KittNLuv.
I am looking forward to reading this series over the summer. It looks like it will make an awesome summer read!