Pale Demon by Kim Harrison

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It is no lie that I am absolutely in love with this series. My favorite memory is how I even found it. I was walking through Borders, intent upon seeing if a certain book was in stock, and this book just randomly fell off the shelf as I approached the aisle. Dead Witch Walking, huh? I automatically went to put it back and paused, reading the back of the book. I was instantly enamored and made my purchase. Two days later, I was finished with the book and found out that the second book was out as well as the third book set for release within a couple weeks. On top of that, Kim Harrison was going to be at a local bookstore doing a signing. What were the odds?

I find it very difficult to connect with characters because they are often two one-dimensional or have one track minds or are so set on something from their past that I get tired of reading about it by the middle of a book. Rachel Morgan is a spitfire redhead with a huge streak of bad luck. It’s an understatement, really. But she tries to do good. Even when forced to do magick she believes is wrong, cringing at the ‘demon smut’ that she has to take on in payment, Rachel sacrifices herself and everything she is to protect those she loves. And she grows along the way. She isn’t a damsel in distress. She isn’t the victim-turned-huntress. She is a woman, a witch, trying her damnedest to survive. And I can respect that. Hell, I can understand it and connect with it and I’ve never found myself rooting so hard for a character.

Rachel’s mission is simple: get to San Francisco and get her shunning annulled. Oh, and get an elf to Seattle. Within two days. With assassins abound and demons rampaging. The story mostly revolves around the actual trip, with the unlikely band of heroes barely scraping themselves off the floor time and time again to keep their too fast pace across the country. Why driving? Because Rachel has been unofficially attached to the No Fly list in order to make things more difficult for her. It just so happens that Trent’s Elf Quest requires him to travel by horse–a car, in the modern world, is an acceptable substitute.

It’s not exactly a spoiler when things don’t go as Rachel hopes in San Francisco. She is banished from reality and into the ever-after with the demons. This is where the story takes an interesting turn and I found myself staying awake far too long in order to plow through it all. But I’m not a spoiling type. You’ll have to read it yourself.

Favorite Part:
Jenks finding out that wearing the color red is not always safe wherever he goes. Whoops! Almost got himself married, that one. Followed by a trip to Disneyland mentioned in passing and Jenks going into the Tink History Museum, coming out calling her an Interland Pioneer.

Favorite Quote/Line:
“Hey, Rache!” Jenks buzzed close. “What’s it like being dead?”
“A lot like being a sixties housewife. What happened?” Trent said I’d been out for three days. Three days? Where was Pierce? And Bis?

Would I Recommend?
Absolutely. But seeing as how it is book nine in a series, I suggest reading the others beforehand–especially Black Magic Sanctum.

I tried to take up a new hobby. I looked it into crochet and knitting. I decided that crochet would be better to start out with. So I popped off and bought a small set of hooks that did not cost me too much and a couple skeins of yarn to practice with. Then the adventure began.

About an hour or two into my learning process, I realized that I felt very much like a kitten. I had gotten all sorts of tangled up in the yarn multiple times. I finally got the motions down and my fingers decided to cooperate. I made a chain! Go me! My pleasure was dashed away as two people, who should have been excited for/with me, told me that even they knew ‘how to chain’ and that it wasn’t that big of a deal. Well excuse me. Two hours into my learning and I’d made a chain of 200. Yes, 200. Because I was trying to get the motions down and the nice YouTube lady told me to. Then the hard part came. What do you mean I have to double back?! Can’t I just keep going on and on until I have a really, really long chain?? No? Damn.

That was several weeks ago.

I am looking for a better source material because I was definitely not doing something right. My attempts at doubling back became this terrible mess and I kept getting confused on which way I was wrapping the yarn around the hook. Was I putting the hook through the right link? Dammit, did I just skip one?

I have not given up. I just need to find a better tutorial source: one that works for me. I have added “crochet a scarf” to my Day Zero Project list.

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I officially feel like white trash. I broke my tooth back in 2009 and couldn’t get the funds together or the nerves to get the root canal and crown. Well a couple days ago, it broke the rest of the way. As in… in half. There was the back. And there was the front.

Today the front part fell out. It is the side that people see. It is the side that everyone looks at in those rare moments where I flash my not-so-pearly-whites! Now there is a hole. Only, it’s not a hole where the tooth is just gone. No. Instead, there is the back-half of the tooth still planted firmly in place, taunting everyone to take a look at the redneck redhead.

So. I has a sad. Because I feel very self-conscious and self-pitying right now.