I loved this book! I think that it's the best, so far, in the series. City of Ghosts picks up about a month after the events in Unholy Magic. So much happened with our characters in Unholy Magic that I wasn't sure how things were going to be tied up in this book. The series was originally supposed to be a trilogy (ending with city of Ghosts). Luckily we are going to at least get three more books in the series starting with Sacrificial Magic out in March '12. 
 I thought that Stacia Kane handled everything really well. She met the challenge of having to tie up some loose ends started in the first book. The main bad guy in this book is the Lamaru. Of course it wouldn't be a Downside book if there were twists and turns along that way. I think this book was the most comprehensive with tthe mystery storyline. In the other two books there were aspects of solving the mystery that I'm still a little cloudy on how everything fit. This is more than likely due to the fact that I was reading them super fast so a re-read of the series is in order, probably before March. But with this book, I immediately undestood all the threads and connections between the different evil factions. 
 I would say the main thing, for me anyway, was finding out how Kane was going to handle things between Terrible and Chess after the heartbreaking events of Unholy Magic. Let me tell you the book was filled with more heartbreaking moments interspersed with sweet caring moments. I understood why they had to be that way. It made their relationship seem more real. It would have been so easy for Terrible to have forgiven Chess right away and forget everything else that happened but that wouldn't be realistic no matter how much readers didn't want to go through more heartache. Whe trust is broken it takes time to repair. This will be something they will be continuing to work on in the upcoming books as well. This is also a way for the readers to see more growth out of Chess. We may never get to see her kick are addiction, but we can see her finally grow enough to love and care for someone. To take that risk after what we know of her past and what we know of her fears is such big growth. I only hope that Kane gives these two a chance and Chess doesn't end up taking two steps back after she's already taken one step forward. I like where this is going. The scenes between Terrible and Chess were what was fueling the story for me. I know this is technically a UF story and let me assure you there's plenty of other stuff going on besides the romance, but it's something that was more in the foreground of this book simply because it's been building sice the fisrt book and this is kind of the completion of a story arc so of course it's going to get handled. Kane does a wonderful job. 
 The ending is very satisfying (very!). Waiting until March for book 4 is going to be difficult enough and I just started reading the series. I can't imagine what people who've been waiting over a yeard for the mext installment have been going through. It helps that there's no cliffhanger ending, just possibilities. 
 If you are like me and saddened that there's still quite I wait until book 4 check out Stacia Kane's story in the Home Improvement: Undead Edition anthology. It takes place in the Downside world, but told from a different POV besides Chess. Both Chess and Terrible are in it and it's very interesting to see them from someone else's perspective, getting to see their interactions. There's some really cute subtlety going on! Well Until March then!