Deliverance by Dakota Banks

Format Read: e-book provided by Author for Review
Length: 304 Pages
Series: Mortal Path Series Book 3
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Release Date: March 27, 2012
Publisher: Harper Voyager Publishing
Formats Available: Paperback, eBook, Kindle, Nook
Purchasing Info: Publisher, Author’s Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, BAM, IndieBoundGoodreads, Kindle, Nook

Book Blurb:

A demon’s assassin for centuries, Maliha Crayne has gone rogue, determined to save a life for every one she’s destroyed in order to free herself from an eternity of enslavement, damnation, and excruciating torment. But as the powers that sustained her in the past fade, she is wary of trusting those closest to her-especially her lover, Jake. Should Maliha listen to her heart or the alarms going off in her head? Then her closest friends begin to disappear, one by one. Amid her anger, suspicion, and sorrow, she feels her life spiraling out of control.

Worse still, a beautiful, Renaissance murderess is recruiting Maliha as her new assassin. Maliha is turning into a lethal puppet with an evil Immortal pulling the strings, forced to kill innocents or see her missing friends die horribly. Suddenly trapped in a moral no-man’s land, Maliha is damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t…and time is rapidly running out.

My Thoughts:

Maliha, the ex-demon assassin, needs to balance the scales of justice, for each life unjustly taken as the demon assassin, a life must be saved. As the scales balance, tiny footsteps burned across Maliha’s flesh, but there is another price for the justice she seeks. She grows older, her body slows, and takes longer to heal from her time as one of the Ageless. Maliha becomes more vulnerable to the forces wishing to end her before she achieves her goal, and her soul becomes her own once more.

This time around, Maliha finds herself up against her worst foe yet. To the real world, she is known as  Marsha Winters, author extraordinaire. To her close friends, she’s known as Mahila Crayne, the righter of wrongs. However, when she returns from the trip to New York, she finds people are missing from her life. First, Arnie Henshaw and then one of her closest friends and advisors, Yanmeng. Arnie is meant as a warning, a foretelling of what is to come. When pieces of Yanmeng start arriving at her apartment, she knows something has gone horribly wrong. Someone wants to pull her strings, become their murderer for hire. She worries about saving Yanmeng and protecting the tight knit group that surround her. If Yanmeng was vulnerable, the rest would be easy prey.

The ex-demon assassin takes matters into her own hands. An Ageless has to be responsible, which can only mean, a demon is behind this latest assault on her sanity and her ability to earn back her soul. Then, there’s Jake, DEA agent, her lover, and Ageless assassin. She wants to love him, but she can’t trust him. Is he the Ageless responsible for Yanmeng? Would he remove everyone important in her life to make sure he stays in hers? She can’t rest until Yanmeng is returned and the responsible party held accountable. The question remains, will she succeed or will she become the one thing she detests, an assassin in the service to another demon?

Deliverance by Dakota Banks is the third book in her Mortal Path series but can be read as a standalone. In this addition, someone is hunting Mahila’s friends. Picking them off, using them as leverage in a bid to retain her services as an assassin. Mahila is determined never to become a demon’s puppet again. Yanmeng, her oldest and closest friend…..may not even be alive, but, it becomes the new purpose in Mahila’s life to find him and avenge him. Is she strong enough to meet this new challenge? Are her friends? And will they understand if she leaves them, even if it’s for their own safety? This new challenge disrupts her life and those of her friends, and if she honest with herself, they have become family, something she never thought to have again. But, if she can’t keep them safe, she can’t keep them at all. Then, there’s Jake and she’s becoming more suspicious of him all the time. There are events that only an Ageless could be responsible for, and though he claims his demon as forgotten about him, Mahila doesn’t buy it. Evidence of Jake’s deviousness keeps popping up in her life.

Deliverance offers readers a pulse pounding start. Mahila is back in action with and she’s better than before. Mahila faces choices, decisions will have to be made, and it all depends on how much she’s willing to sacrifice and for whom. She has a code in her life, one she’s bound to if she going to buy back her soul, if she’s going to right the centuries of the past. But, she also has another code, one she holds sacred, and that’s for the tight knit group of friends. Lovers aren’t taken lightly in Mahila’s life and Jake has proven himself, but something is wrong in their relationship, and it leads Mahila to question more than just his love, his desire, his almost fascination. Dakota Banks writes a series where action pours from the pages, from one heart pounding event to another, full of action, suspense, and mystery. A strong story of lifetimes bound together, where friendship means more, where love is shared.

The Mortal Path series is urban fantasy at it’s best and Deliverance lives up to it’s name, it delivers. Highly recommended for Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance lovers alike.

I give Deliverance 5 Stars

Many thanks to Guest Reviewer Dottie from Tink’s Place for providing this lovely review of Deliverance. Dottie is an avid reader, book blogger and aspiring author. She lives in Illinois with her family. 🙂

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

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