I loved this book, but am getting a little tired of series books that can't stand on their own as a single story. ( )

Hilarious book!

In addition to vampires, mages, demons and fairies, this book adds in werewolves and a secret society who's intentions aren't clear.

Sabina meets the mage half of her family, and doesn't seem to really get along with them any better than she did with the vampire half. She also meets the twin sister she never knew she had.

The demon-cat/minion/familiar Gighul has moved on from home shopping and Oprah to 24-hour porn and demon fight club. And he gains a demon girlfriend. Gighul is the best character in this series - full-on comic relief in an already funny book.

I listened to this on audio, which really made the demon parts come alive. So many puns that jumped out with the audio narration.

This book ends on a cliff hanger....so I'll be starting book 3 soon. ( )

Soooo I was really getting into this series Sabina was annoying every now and then but hey we gotta have room to grow. Then the author did something I just couldn’t forgive even though Sabina is attracted to Adam and likes him as a person she fucks this Slade dude and I just lost respect for the character. She’s 50 and can’t deal with feelings I’m sure it won’t bother a lot of people but it’s one of my things where I know I’ll just never look at the MC the same ( )

Red-Headed Stepchild wasn’t a book that impressed me much, so I went into this one with a degree of trepidation. Since the end of the first hit the main character, Sabina, over the head with a revelation hammer, it’s possible that she will at least shake loose one of the annoying traits that turned me off so badly before: blind devotion. Now, let’s see if she was able to improve in other ways as well…

Story-wise, the plot was a worthy continuation, picking off where RHS leaves off. Since Sabina finally had to face reality, she goes a bit more with the flow here and the interesting storyline stays interesting. New characters help inject charm. She’s forced out of her natural element and into new situations and completely different sorts of people than what she’s used to interacting with.

Action and pacing are held evenly throughout, and usually something’s going on. I do hold a little grief with the ending, though, as it’s one of those cliffhanger types that resemble TV show season finale endings. Leaving questions unanswered is fine, but having it cut off in an obvious ploy to want the reader to grab the next book for the opening chapter is a pet peeve of mine. Most of the book takes place in the mage area, so we get to see a lot of that unusual world.

As before there was mucho humor in the book, and it seems to blend in more naturally than the first book’s attempts. Unfortunately I still don’t like Sabina. She’s better without the blind loyalty but she’s still ridiculously abrasive and badly tempered. She’s a trained fighter who seeks to hurt everyone and ask questions later, not caring about much besides herself.

There is a new lust interest but he was a major turnoff to me too. He turned me off mainly and majorly by participating and organizing demon ring fights (against their will), which with its gratuitous violence reminded me of pit bull fights. Yuck. Accompanied with that and then his smirking, smug actions at the beginning, I am definitely not team Sade yet.

Adam’s barely in the book at all, only at the very beginning and the very end. Maise was a good character, fun and bubbly, but Rhea comes across much too controlling and superior.

An improvement to the first in storyline and protagonist growth (a little), and it’s clear the writer knows how to rock the humor mode. Sabina is still overly abrasive, mindless and thuggish in behavior to me, and the cliffhanger ending again strikes right when they’re on their way to do something. I am curious how much the series improves with book three.



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Sabina finds out which mage has been trying to kill her and her sister Maisie is kidnapped by her grandmother Lavinia. Now Sabina and Adam will have to try to get her back. Not until March 2011 in the Green Eyed book. ( )