The Holy Terror

A solid start with some intense characters and a fascinating world and mythology. I'll definitely be reading the next installment when it's released.Nikki Glass is Black's smartest character yet. She's pragmatic and resourceful, and I just about cheered when she made choices that an intelligent person would make. Thank you for not making her too stupid to live, and for also not making her whiny, bratty, or a cliché. She doesn't trust people right away, she doesn't fall into bed with anyone, and after she ignores her gut instinct once and gets burned by it, she doesn't do it again. This chick learns. She's not just blindly running around and getting messed up in shit she can't handle. The shit comes to her unbidden and she deals.This book isn't about vampires, werewolves, or demons; it's about the children of gods. That's right, multiple. Norse, Greek, Egyptian: so many different pantheons are represented and I wholly enjoyed this. I love it when beliefs twist and bend, but still manage to stay (somewhat) true to the original story. And a lot of these immortal children are fucked up and don't think like normal humans; which makes absolute sense. Sex, rape, torture, time, are all concepts that these characters either take for granted or embrace with vigor. Every single person in this series is just so grey, and you have to wonder exactly which side is the "right" one. I love it when things aren't so cut and dry, and you're left guessing about where things are going to end up.This story had some actual shockers in terms of surprise reveals, and I have to say that these people have turned revenge into an art form.Anderson, the leader of one of the factions, reminds me of Adam without the gay sex/bdsm, or better yet, The Erlking, with a slightly less malicious agenda. Take that as you will.Even though I don't love every single one of Black's stories, I have to admit that I fly through them. Her style of writing is just so damn readable that I don't regret the time I spend with her books. To me, she's made up for the debacle that was the Morgan Kingsley series, and she's back to being an author I'll buy blindly. Hopefully this doesn't bite me in the ass.My reviews of other Black books: Shadowspell, book two in her YA faerie series that The Erlking stars in, and the fourth and fifth books in Morgan's series, where Adam resides.