Red-Haired Ash Reads

This is a collection of short stories that take place throughout the Elemental Assassin series. If you have not read the series, or have not finished the series, then you will most likely be confused at times because some of these stories do relate to the main storyline. I have included when these stories take place to make it easier to figure out when to read them. 

Spider’s Bargain 

This is a Gin Blanco short and takes place before Spider’s Bite, book 1.

This is a short scene of Gin doing a pro bono case to kill Detective Cliff Ingles and evil man who likes to hurt young girls. I love that Gin may be an assassin but she has a moral code and she tries to clean up her town. 

Web of Death

This is a Gin short and takes place after Spider’s Bite. 

Gin is struggling with the boredom of being retired, her grief over Fletcher’s death, and moving into his house. While moving things in she hears a scream and decides to investigate and ends up rescuing a woman who works for Roslyn. 

Web of Deceit

This is a Fletcher Lane short and takes place several years before Spider’s Bite. 

This was a wonderful short showing how proud Fletcher was of Gin and her abilities as an assassin. It also shows us how guilty he felt about the death of her mother and older sister and how he was determined to help Gin to get revenge. I love that we got a short featuring Fletcher because he is such an important character but sadly we don’t get to know him. I love getting this brief glimpse of him raising Gin and training her to be an assassin like he was. 

Poison

This is a Finnegan Lane short and takes place several years before Spider’s Bite.

This is teenage Finn being angry and resentful about Gin’s presence in his family and Fletcher’s desire to train her to be an assassin instead of him. We see a very sulk and angry Finn but he quickly changes his tune in the end when Gin saves him. I like seeing teenage Finn and his struggle with Gin suddenly joining his family. I do like seeing the start of the family bond being formed between these two though.

Wasted

This is a Finnegan Lane short and it takes place after Web of Lies, book 2. 

In this we get to see that while Finn may not be an assassin his father still taught him how to take care of himself, or in this case bank robbers. Finn may be a pretty boy who loves flirting but he has a violent side when necessary and I love when we see him get ruthless. 

Tangled Dreams

This is a Jo-Jo and Sophia Deveraux short and takes place after Venom, book 3. 

This was a great little scene because we get both Jo-Jo’s and Sophia’s POV. Jo-Jo and Sophia are two characters that I have loved from the very beginning so I love seeing this little scene of them taking care of Gin and how they utilize their air magic in different ways. Also who knew Jo-Jo could be so dangerous.

Tangled Schemes

This is a Bria Coolidge short and takes place after Venom, book 3. 

This shows Bria’s struggle with finding out Genevieve is alive, she is the spider, and that she can’t find her. I enjoyed this candid look at Brianand her feelings. We get to see the determined woman and her drive to bring people to justice with her badge. 

Spider’s Nemesis

This is a Mab Monroe short and takes place after Tangled Threads, book 4. 

This is a slightly longer short than the other and shows Mab’s anger at being unable to kill Spider. We also see a brief glimpse of her and Gin’s mothers past and her attempting to kill all of the Snow family. It was very interesting to have Mab’s POV and to feel her anger at being thwarted. She is one of my favorite villains. 

Haints and Hobwebs

This is a Gin story and it takes place after Tangled Threads, book 4. 

This was a very interesting short story. This is the first time ghosts or haints have been mentioned in this series so it was interesting to see how they worked. I enjoyed this story of love and loss a lot. As with all of Gin’s stories, I loved seeing her kick ass and help those in need. 

Also, I really enjoyed seeing Owen actually help with a mission. It shows how much he accepts all of Gin and her assassin ways. He really is the perfect man for her and I can’t wait to see their relationship grow. 

Parlor Tricks

This is a Gin story and it takes place after Deadly Sting, book 8. 

This was a short story featuring Gin and Bria at a carnival. It definitely was a creepy circus and I agree with Gin that clowns can be creepy. I liked this one because it was just Gin and Bria taking on the bad guys. They made a good team.

*ARC provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.*

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