Hound's Bite

Ivy returns home with hounds on her heels.

*I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Ivy, Ceff, and Torn have returned from Faerie, with the Wild Hunt on their heels. Opening the door and going to Faerie has it's consequences, and the Wild Hunt is one for Ivy.

By now you know I'm a sucker for the extras in audio. The first thing we hear are the howls that Ivy hears as she speaks, questioning what the howls are. This has me liking the audio from the first moment. We get a female and male voice team for this book. All feminine voices are performed by Melanie and all male by Anthony. It adds a nice flavor and contrast to the characters as we listen. I like the sound that they give to Herne's voice.

The refresher was shorter in this book, thankfully. Though when we meet someone we get their back story as of now. I'm one for working this into the story not just giving it to me at seeing the person in the beginning of the book. But that's my preference, not everyone's.

At times I found sentences that were more poetic than others. There are also sentences that made the story feel as though it was for a young adult crowd (which it's really not) because it told what was implied the sentence before, instead of letting the impression for the reader be all that was needed. I like how the writing has improved as well. Ivy doesn't just point something out about herself, the events and others guide to that moment of a bigger feeling.

Ivy has grown into a strong woman. She has to do the things that are hard, and stop someone that's dangerous. She's written more in what she's doing than just telling us how she is. Ivy also has to face consequences of what's been done in the past.

This book feels to be deeper in the plot. There is more reason to the Wild Hunt being here than originally thought. And I like the connections to the reasons. They feel on the larger scale than the previous books. There is more to come and more going on outside of Ivy's little world than we knew.

Jinx has her own drive in this book. She's working to free the streets of the dangerous drug Ice. It was something that was used on her and killed another, but that story can be found in Club Nexus. This is a wonderful tie in and building of the character that we've seen through the stories.

I very much enjoyed this story. It felt to tie a bunch of strings from the previous books together here. Everything leads up to something. What the characters have lived through and why the events have happened. I like this connection as the story feels to have a great depth to it.