Devil's Bargain - Rachel Caine

Devil’s Bargain – Rachel Caine

Pages: 331

Publisher: Harlequin Mira

Release Date: 5^th October 2012

Edition: UK paperback, review copy

Other Titles by this Author: Glass Houses, The Dead Girls’ Dance, Midnight Alley, Feast of Fools, Lord of Misrule, Carpe Corpus, Fade Out, Kiss of Death, Ghost Town, Bite Club, Last Breath, Black Dawn

Playing by the psychic underworld’s rules has a cost.

Jazz Callender’s whole life just got turned upside down. Her friend Ben’s been convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and Jazz is determined to clear his name, even if it means enlisting the help of dark forces.

Enter James, a stranger with a mysterious offer. If Jazz pledges to work for The Cross Society, a shadowy, secret organisation, he’ll help her save Ben.

But as she’s thrust into a world of psychic powers and dangerous magic, Jazz isn’t just bargaining for her friend’s freedom. She’s bargaining for her soul too.

And how high a price is she willing to pay?

Those of you who’ve been readers of this blog for a while will know that my love for Rachel Caine’s Morganville Vampires series is undying. Devil’s Bargain did nothing to lower my obsession level.

One of the strongest aspects of Caine’s novels is her heroines. She really knows how to write a character who’s completely bad-ass and who has you routing for her from the very beginning. Jazz Callender is up there with the best of them. She’s spunky and brave and can kick some serious ass. But Jazz also has a vulnerable side and she’s a bit of an underdog really.

James Borden sees all of these things in Jazz and more. I was shipping them from the moment he walked into the bar, head to toe in leathers. They have some seriously crackling chemistry and there were some very intense scenes that had me begging for them to finally, finally kiss! Alas, no. It took around three hundred pages for that to happen...

I have to admit that even though I championed Jazz and Borden from the beginning, I wasn’t always sure I could trust him until Jazz finally relented and began to trust him herself. In fact, Devil’s Bargain is the kind of novel where I rarely knew who to trust and what to believe which is always fun. The whole premise of a sketchy sounding company dealing in psychics, fate and destiny is very unusual and Rachel Caine kept the intrigue up throughout the novel.

Devil’s Bargain is the first of Rachel Caine’s adult books that I’ve read and it definitely won’t be the last. It was everything that I’ve come to love and expect from her: bad ass ladies, gorgeous guys, non-stop action, high stakes and captivating and original mythology.

I loved Devil’s Bargain and I’m really looking forward to the release of its companion, Devil’s Due.

Thanks to Mira for providing me a copy for review.

Sophie