Black Magic Sanction by Kim Harrision

Its 40 years since 'the Turn' and humanity's very survival is dependent on help from the various species of the Inderland.

Rachel Morgan is a white witch who lives in a church in Cincy with Ivy, her vampire friend, Jenk, a pixie, and Bis, a young gargoyle.  She is also a student to a demon named Al.

Rachel seems to be one of those people who inadvertantly is always getting herself into sticky situations that require complex solutions.  Fortunately she has a number of dear friends who are willing and capable of helping.  The fact that they include a living vampire, a pixie and a dead witch who has a replacement body makes the story all the more interesting.

Rachel never did anything to get herself in trouble, it just came looking for her in the form of the ruling members of the coven of moral and ethical standards (the supposedly good white witches).  Not satisfied with shunning her, they want her imprisoned and much worse.  Sorry, can't tell you the details, don't want to spoil the tale.  This story all takes place within the course of several days.  It is constant non-stop action.  There is no sitting around socially over a cup of tea, rather there is scheming, back stabbing, curses and spells.  Everything needed for a good, wicked read.

This book is actually the 8th book in the Hallows Series.  It took me several pages to figure out who everyone is and what their relations to Rachel, but not reading the earlier books didn't diminish my enjoyment of this book.  I had met several of the characters earlier when I read 'Unbound'.  It contains a short story by Kim Harrison about Jenks, the pixie.  I hadn't met Pierce in that story.  He is Al's familiar and thus well known to Rachel, and he's quite the hunk...

I was about half way through this book, enjoying it immensely, when  I stopped to order the first 4 books in the series, and then continued reading.  I'm looking forward to starting this series at the beginning and finding the answers to a number of interesting situations that have been alluded to in this book.

Thanks to HarperCollins for sending me this advance copy of the book and for the cover picture posted above.

Darla's review at Books & other thoughts

The Book Guru's review