Million Dollar Demon

A new master vampire for Cincinnati is already causing Rachel Morgan a heap of trouble before she even arrives. This particular master seems bent on causing as much destruction and chaos as possible to the supernatural citizens, many of whom are Rachel’s people or under her care. Rachel’s friends and allies are suffering, pushing her into some dirty tricks in order to get the upper hand on Constance the Crazy. With Trent in Seattle with his Elf family including the very challenging Elspeth for much of the story, Rachel has to find help among new and old friends. She is on the outs with Al because of Rachel’s relationship with his brother, Hodin. Al and his kind are being extremely stubborn regarding Hodin’s prior allegiance to the elves; Al refuses to help or even see his former student despite their prior relationship. Rachel’s damaged church has become the land of misfit toys after Constance evicts numerous supes and humans including Rachel herself from Piscary’s and Kisten’s boat.Constance’s scion, Pike, spends quite a bit of time with Rachel while she tries to convince him to reign in the crazy or take Constance out himself. Pike has his own agenda because… vampire! He wants to bring Rachel to heel which is so not happening. Constance kidnaps someone important to the elves holding the person hostage to force Rachel’s compliance. Rachel, Jenks, and their allies work to free the captive as well as push Constance out of Cincinnati in any way possible short of killing her themselves. Being around Pike reminds Rachel physically and emotionally of her feelings for her lost love Kisten. She has to constantly fight the pheromone attraction to keep the upper hand with Pike and Constance.Rachel has a lot of conflicting feelings and issues: selling the church once it is repaired, her relationship with Trent because of all those against them as a couple, and the demands of her allies that she takes a more active role in running the city. Rachel does not want to rule; however, she is not about to let a nefarious, whacked out vampire use and abuse those under she feels responsible for in her town. Rachel and Trent’s enemies to lovers liaison is still getting worked out with all the various challenges it presents. Book #15 in the Hollows series, there some unresolved issues that continue and lots of drama still to unfold for inhabitants in stories to come.

I received this ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest and voluntary review. I was in no way compensated for this review.Kim Harrison returns to The Hollows with the latest in the series, Million Dollar Demon. It’s truly amazing how far this series has come! I love that it has returned with new installments that pick up where we left off. Things get really crazy in this one and it was just the exciting read I needed!Rachel has had a rough go of it lately, her church is in disarray and trying to find contractors to fix it has been impossible. That and needing to find a new place to live as the up and coming master vampire, Constance has kicked her out of her houseboat digs since it was Kisten’s and what was Kisten’s was Piscary and so forth. Constance is determined to run Rachel out of town, but Constance clearly doesn’t know who Rachel Morgan is.Things were a little more simple this time around plot wise. Rachel mostly has her hands full with Constance and trying to find a way they could both live peacefully in Cincinnati, but things don’t go all that smoothly. Add in trying to repair her church when Constance is pulling strings to get contractors to leave the job and buying new houses out from under her, Rachel is pretty much in a pickle.We have a new character Pike involved as well, he’s a vampire who works for Constance and there’s definite friction between him and Rachel. Not the romantic kind thankfully, but it’s like these two cant decide if they should kill each other or go out for a beer!Jenks of course is back and is his usual self. I love that pixy! I was bummed that Ivy was still MIA with Nina. Hopefully they’ll return for the next installment. Rachel is also having demon problems as Al is not happy with her for talking to Hodin, really none of the demons are happy that she is talking to him and it causes strife with those relationships.I was happy to see that Trent came back early from a trip to help Rachel out with things. I’m still blown away that he and Rachel are now an item. I mean wow. If you’ve been with this series from the beginning, you know what I mean. They are definitely an enemies to lovers kind of couple and I’m all for it. Trent is definitely a guy you want in your corner.The pacing to this one was a nice moderate level. There’s plenty of action of varying degrees that keeps you entertained and turning the pages eager to see how it will all end. There’s a few moments of romance between Rachel and Trent, but nothing overwhelming. It’s true old fashioned Urban Fantasy at hand here and I didn’t want things to end. If this is a genre you’d like to get into it, I would highly recommend this series! It’s one filled with action, romance, humor, suspense, amazing friendships and all sorts of paranormal goodness that it’s a series you will love from the very start! I can’t wait to see where Kim will take this in its new future course. Million Dollar Demon is a solid gold read!Overall Rating 5/5 starsMillion Dollar Demon releases June 15, 2021