Halloween Spooktacular Day 2

Happy early Halloween! My name is Jess from Happily Ever After – Reads, and I’m so excited to be a part of Book Lover’s Hideaway & Romance Book Junkies - Halloween Spooktacular! Thanks ladies for having me and for my post I wanted to talk a little bit about my favorite witch from the Hollows series, a series all fans of urban fantasy MUST be reading!

Rachel Morgan/Hollows series by Kim Harrison 

“Come on, Rachel!" Jenks shrilled. "You're a badass, not a bad witch!”

The first thing comes to mind when I think about Halloween is the costume I dressed up in for years when I was little – a witch! I’m not sure where the fascination came from, I loved the Wizard of Oz, but the witch and monkeys terrified me for years. But every October, I’d dig the black pointy hat out and dress up as a witch again. Fast forward a (er…few) years and I found myself at the bookstore staring at a book called Dead Witch Walking. I had never heard of Kim Harrison or the Rachel Morgan series, and to be honest, urban fantasy wasn’t at the top of my most read genres. Something about it struck a cord and my obsession with witches continued.

There is just something about Rachel Morgan that makes you root for her, in all aspects of her life. She doesn’t have the best luck with work, relationships, her magic, you name it and she’s got problems with it. But through it all, through everything that gets tossed at her, she always does what she needs to, in most cases, to survive. She crosses the line with her magic, having a tainted aura when she dips into black magic – always for a purpose to help others.

Every new story finds Rachel up against something. It feels like for every triumph she has, which let’s face it are few and far between in the beginning, she has a setback. It’s like something in her universe is out to get her and she’s constantly battling against everything and everyone, luckily she has some great friends in her corner. Is Jenks maybe the most well known sidekick in UF right now? I think it’s safe to say he’s pretty unforgettable as Rachel’s smart ass, sarcastic fairy friend. And Ivy…Rachel’s vampire partner and really the best friend she has. All three live in a converted church and some of the best moments in the series take place in Rachel’s kitchen where she does her spells. I love when the scene shifts to the kitchen, everything important seems to happen there. Reading about what new spell Rachel’s working on to help get her or one of her friends out of a fix is one the driving forces of the books. The other – the emotion.

This is where my love/hate with urban fantasy comes into play. I’m a happy endings kind of girl. I want them, I need them, that’s why I read stories, I want to get to the last page and sigh in happy bliss. That’s not always a guarantee in this genre, but it just figures some of the highest emotion is found in these books. Fans of this series, I should really only have to say one word and you’ll know exactly what I mean: Kisten. To this day, his storyline still makes me rock back and forth in a ball of angst and denial. I was stunned, to say the least, with how his storyline played out and even with all the heartbreak (Rachel’s and mine) it ended up sucking me into this world even more, and completely anxious to see where Harrison took Rachel after this.

As if that wasn’t enough, more recently we watched Jenks deal with his own loss, that had me grabbing for the box of tissues yet again. Add in her roommate Ivy dealing with her vampirism and it’s an emotional overload! But the series balances it all out, countering the emotion with laugh out moments and characters that come alive on page. This is where I might lose some people, but I have to give my favorite character a couple lines – love him or hate him, Trent has been around since book 1 and after the events in the latest book, Pale Demon, he’s connected to Rachel more than ever. In book 1, he was a complete ass, but even then I loved reading about the guy. He’s one of those characters that has been there, sometimes in the background, or as in Pale Demon, right front and center and he’s another constant in Rachel’s world.

I hope you all are reading this series – Rachel is one of my favorite book characters and at the top as my favorite witch! Each book ends up being a rollercoaster with Rachel and her gang trying to figure out a mystery, get out of another tight spot, or just deal with whatever life is throwing at them this time around.  And of course, no book is complete without plenty of laugh out loud Jenks quotes:

“Oh for the sweet humpin' love of Tink!”

Fans of the series – I want to know who your favorite character is and why? Are there any moments that stand out to you over the course of the series?

Jess

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