Reviewer: Tracy
Agave Kiss (Corine Solomon, #5) by Ann Aguirre
Series: Corine Solomon #5
Also in this series: Shady Lady (Corine Solomon, #3)
Publisher: Roc
Publication Date: March 5, 2013
Point-of-View: First
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 336
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Series Rating:

Chance was gone; he’d sacrificed himself so Shannon and I could escape Sheol. But we’d succeeded in raising him on Shan’s spirit radio, which meant his soul wasn’t wholly destroyed by the demon gate…

Once Corine Solomon only had the touch—the ability to read an object’s past by handling it. Then she inherited her mother’s magick, and that ended up being a hell of a burden. But if Corine can wrestle a demon queen and win, she can bring back her lover Chance after he’s made the ultimate sacrifice. Can’t she? All Corine knows is that she can’t leave Chance behind if there’s anything she can do about it.

But the clock is ticking—and she still has to deal with debt-collecting demons and a maniacal archangel who’s running a recruitment drive. The stakes have never been so high…and this time it’s truly Corine’s last chance to save the love of her life.

Corine Solomon is a shadow of her former self. She’s devastated by the loss of Chance and isn’t sure how she’s going to get home as Sheol spit her out in jolly ole England. She’s a numb woman when she gets a phone call from her friend Ian Booke telling her that he needs help and he needs her to come to England. He’s a bit surprised to hear she’s already there but not as surprised as Corine is when she drives up to his cottage and it’s nothing but a shack. When she walks in with Shannon she’s even more surprised to find out he’s a very old man who has been cursed to live in his cottage for many years. He wants Corine to break the curse somehow and let him die as he becomes weaker every day. Corine gets help from her friend Kelethiel and he breaks the curse which makes Booke age at an alarming rate (he looks about 60 but is actually about 102 or so). Corine manages to get him to America as he wants to see Chuch and Eva before he dies.

When they get to America Chuch talks Booke into looking into getting his youth back and when they have a party to celebrate his curse-breaking they are visited by Luren who are working for Sibella who wants Corine in return for the bargain she feels that Corine broke in Sheol. On top of that Kel’s boss, Barachiel wants Corine to work for him to become a figurehead in his war but Corine’s pretty sure that Barachiel isn’t an archangel – but a demon. On top of THAT she gets visited by Chance in a dream and he tells her that there’s a chance that he can come back to her but his father, who is a God, is trying to talk him into become the God of wealth.

Corine has lots of stuff on her plate, including finding out that she’s going to be a mother. She wants to solve everyone’s problems and she’s feeling bad that she’s constantly “using” her friends but they’re there to help her. She has to figure out how to save Kel, get the Luren off her back and get Chance back but in the end just wants to live a normal life with the love of her life.

This was a great ending in a wonderful series. In this story Corine’s insecurities came out in droves but I thought they were all pretty justified in the end. Yes, she did go overboard a bit with the “using” of her friends when in actuality they just wanted to help her any way they could, but even that seemed par for the course with the way her life was going.

I really liked the wrap up of all the different parts of Corine’s life that we’d been reading about all this time. Kel was a wonderful character and I was sad to see him when he realized that he wasn’t working for God but for a demon. He was really a kind soul and part in this story was a bit heart wrenching for me as I’ve liked him so much in previous books.

We get resolution between Shannon, Jesse and Corine and with Booke added into the mix I thought it was well done. Chance, while he played a huge role in the overall story of the book played a very small role on page. the parts he was in though were great. He has changed so very much over the course of the series and I loved seeing him finally admit to all of his feelings for Corine.
A great series comes to an end – if you haven’t read the books I would definitely recommend them – but I’m sure we’ll get more great books from Aguirre in the future.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Corine Solomon