If these things keep happening to Joanne I may have to start seeing who gets beat up almost to death more often her or Kate Daniels. So we left Joanne having been informed that she's now a Djinn--which I find highly suspect and convenient that it could happen. Actually given the current trend to endings in this series I'm wondering about the convenient things that continually happen to Joanne.

Good news is that just 'cause she's technically dead as a mortal it doesn't mean we don't get to see her friends, associates or David's abs anymore. The bad news is that we do get to sit through a little bit of a 'Oops! New Djinn didn't know I could do that!' training mode.

Things heat up (get it?) pretty quickly for Joanne and David as David tries to teach Joanne how NOT to get herself claimed, they both try to figure out who's messing around in the Oversight so horribly, old friends (flames?) appear to knock their relationship around a bit and oh yeah Joanne ends up pulling a 'I Dream of Genie' bit for a little while.

While some of the book felt a little repetitious--I understand what the Weather Wardens do, I understand just how powerful Lewis is, yes we know the Wardens 'killed' you Joanne--a whole bunch of other stuff was intriguing and new. As Joanne learned about being a Djinn, which is a lot of work for no pay, we also got to see how David operates and some of his motivations. Learned more about what its like for a Djinn to be 'claimed' and the vast amount of power differences between the claimed and the free.

And for fun Joanne laments her lack of speedy cars. Which is cute.

Honestly speaking I kind of questioned the long term goals of David and Joanne; if Yvette, Kevin and Jonathan hadn't shown up I'm not entirely certain this would have been an interesting enough novel just with the two of them. They're not quite formed yet in some ways--comparatively speaking Joanne has only known David for about two weeks, half of which she's laid injured, out cold or being misled about his identity.

The end had me biting my lip in both fascination and irritation. I was fascinated because after a long(ish) speech by David to Jonathan about what it feels like to be 'claimed' things seem to take a different path. Irritated because it had such an obvious hook to make the reader want to read the third book that I was ready to toss it across the room. If I didn't HAVE the next three books in the series I likely WOULD have thrown it across the room.

Still with CHILL FACTOR waiting on my shelf, and the next Morganville Vampires book not due out for a few months yet, I have time to digest a bit. This isn't a terribly deep series or thought-provoking one, but its a pleasant piece of fluff to entertain one for an evening or afternoon.

( )

I went into this book expecting big changes due to Joanne having been turned into a Djinn at the end of book one. I did not expect (nor want) the book to start with exactly the same annoying snark-for-the-sake-of-bitchiness and car worship, followed immediately by hot hotel sex (without foreplay, and with only a hint of why Djinn are different). What came next was immediately "Joanne is better at this Djinn stuff than I expected" and I just couldn't take any more. ~ DNF @ 9%

Ill Wind
Heat Stroke
Read the first two in the series “Weather Wardens” but it is so far out I’m not sure I’ll continue with it . . . Good urban fantasy ala Rob Thurman. ( )

this book was totally better than the first, it was great, and very exciting. I'm still wrapping my head around jo being human again oh well will see how things go in the next book. But as for this book, it was interesting on how everything played out and how things happened because of "love" and the whole fact that the end all be all of djinn was captured OMG! ( )

Complaints:
-I don't understand the sparkles.
A)They can pass through Jonathan's home's barrier yet can't pass through an average Djinn's bottle? Jonathan is the God of the Djinn??
B)They eat Djinn, Patrick was utterly covered in them, Joanne drags him to a place less covered in sparkles and? he's fine?? And this is after we see Rahel die via sparkles.
-Seeing that the book starts with Joanne and David having about a week of alone time, this is the perfect chance to ground their instant true love from Ill Wind into something believable. Something based on more than sex and good looks. Did not happen. (which makes the fact that he ripped a hole in their universe to keep her alive something I had to consciously just... accept... to not give up immediately)
-During the conversation where it is revealed that Kevin is/was being sexually abused, Joanne holds and then kisses him. On the mouth. A sexually abused child. She kisses him again later to... wake him up (??why??? this child is not sleeping beauty)... and then compains that he is bad at kissing. A sexually abused child.
-Lewis and Joanne's relationship is leaned on and talked about some more in this book. Lewis remains boring. He's the most powerful guy around! He cares about Free Will! He wears dirty boots! He's in the room and a part of the plot and I regularly forgot he was still there! Its revealed that they love each other, but, like with David, there doesn't seem to be any reason for it besides they had sex once.

Pros
-Still love Joanne. Even if Caine doesn't craft steady believable relationships from Joanne's loud sexuality, I appreciate that it is still there. Joanne is a woman who runs towards the danger to stop it. I love that she makes sure she's wearing killer shoes while doing so.
-Yvette makes a great villain.
-Joanne's confusion of feelings towards Kevin. On the one hand he's a kid being abused. On the other, his hands aren't clean. There isn't a clean cut way to look at him. I'm glad Joanne stayed in that gray area.
-Ifrits are creepy cool ( )