Book Review: Unbinding by Eileen Wilks

Unbinding
Author: Eileen Wilks
Series: World of the Lupi (Book 11)
Publication: Berkley (October 7, 2014)

Description: In the newest Novel of the Lupi, the human and elven worlds are both about to come under attack…

After questing through the sidhe realms with her ex-hellhound lover, Nathan, Kai Tallman Michalski has finally returned home. But she knows Nathan will eventually be called back to serve his queen—and Kai will have to decide whether to enter her majesty’s service as well. Sure, the job comes with great bennies, but there’s one big downside: she would have to swear absolute fealty to the Queen of Winter.

For now, though, Kai is glad to be home, and glad that Nathan completed his mission for his queen with surprising ease. But what seemed to be a quick conclusion turns out to be anything but. The two of them helped thwart the sidhe god of chaos—and he is not happy about that. He’s got plans for them. Plans, too, for the sidhe who killed him some three millennia ago. Nor has he abandoned his plans for Earth, as they learn when chaos begins bursting out all over...

My Thoughts: This story shifts focus from Lily Yu and Rule and concentrates on Kai Tallman Michalski and her lover Nathan who happens to be a former hellhound and a servant of the Winter Queen. Having spent some time in faerie, Kai and Nathan are back on Earth. Kai is trying to decided if she should pledge herself to the Winter Queen too.

Kai has a rare Gift. She is a mindhealer. That gift is particularly handy when a mad god of chaos decides that he wants to gather a whole new bunch of human worshipers. Kai, Nathan, the lupi and the FBI are all kept busy as the god begins kidnapping humans in pairs and sowing chaos in multiple places in the San Diego area.

Things get even more difficult for Kai when Nathan, Benedict and Cullen and kidnapped and taken to the godhead. Kai is sick with worry and left alone on Earth to figure out what the god wants and how he can be stopped. Meanwhile, Nathan is trying to figure out how he can manage to kill the god now that they are in the same world. This is complicated by the fact that the god has pitted Nathan and Benedict in a fight to the death with the fates of their ladies as the prize.

The story is filled with action and deals with of lot of magic. It had, perhaps, more explanations of magic than I cared about or could understand. The strength of the characters carried me through some of the more complex bits. Wilks has a talent for making characters that I can and do care about.

Fans of this series won't want to miss this episode.

Favorite Quote:

"Let me tell you the true lesson, then, to supplant the false one. You will live a long time, my beautiful Nadrellian. Not as long as I, but long enough to grow weary, as many of my people do. Remember this: the only way to live is to live—and death is always, always, part of living. We die over and over. Oh, the big death comes but once, but a thousand deaths arrive with every turn of the seasons—the death of a day or a lover, of a friend or a dream, death piled upon death. The slow sundering of years parts us even from who we once were and from the memories which parented us. Live anyway."

I bought this one. You can buy your copy here.