I received a copy of this book at no cost from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Wow.

I've loved this series since I started reading it, and have eagerly awaited each new installment. I have yet to be let down, and the series just keeps getting better.

Dorian Lake has been having a rough time lately. As if losing his soul wasn't bad enough, his troubles from the magical world are affecting his friends - some in truly awful ways - messing with his lovelife and getting him caught in the middle of an internal war within one of the most powerful magical groups in the country. And while he has never wanted to participate in Netherwork (dark magic) his enemies aren't leaving him a lot of options.

In this story, Dorian's slow-but-steady fail continues as he realizes that demonic forces are trying to create mass chaos in his city and he finds someone who claims to know where is soul is - but will only tell him if he can get concessions from a new group in town. Of course, this new group has conditions of its own if he wants their assistance. Not helping matters any is an upstart practitioner who is competing with Dorian for customers, and winning a bit too often for Dorian's taste.

Author JP Sloan managers to juggle all of these elements with a deft hand and throws in several twists just to keep things interesting. One thing I particularly liked was that none of the twists were so obvious that I was able to predict what was going to happen, yet when I reflected back on the events leading up to them, I could see how Sloan had carefully set each element up so that when the dominos began to fall it all made sense.

This story was by turns exciting, humorous, touching and devastating. Sloan has created a believable alternate reality and stocked it with interesting - and generally likeable inhabitants. I like that his characters are not clearly divided into good guys and bad ones. Instead, they're multi-dimensional with both positive and negative attributes. It's hard to watch a character like Dorian - who I've grown quite fond of - falling so far and harder still to know he's probably not reached bottom yet, but I'm really eager to find out what happens next and to see how - or if -Dorian can be redeemed.