Street Magic by Caitlin Kittredge

Synopsis From Back Cover:

Her name is Pete Caldecott.  She was just sixteen when she met Jack Winter, a gorgeous, larger-than-life mage who thrilled her with his witchcraft.  Then a spirit Jack summoned killed him before Pete's eyes-or so she thought.  Now a detective, Pete is investigating the kidnapping of a young girl form the streets of London...a case that brings her face to face with Jack.

Strung out on heroin, Jack is a shadow of his former self.  But he's able to tell Pete exactly where Bridget's kidnappers are hiding: in the supernatural shadow world of the fey.  Pete follows jack into the fey underworld, where she hopes to discover the truth about what happened to Bridget-and what happened to jack on that dark day so long ago...

I had been going back and forth on whether or not I wanted to read these books.  A lot of my friends and fellow bloggers love this series but every time I picked up Street Magic, which is the first book in the series, I would get turned off by the way Pete is depicted on the cover.  If you look at it, Jack is sexy and looks dangerous while Pete just looks ridiculous.  She posed with her head leaning down and her shoulders pulled back which causes her arms to hang straight down, behind her back.  She looks like a sexed up B-Movie vampire ready to pounce on her prey.  I think it's a really poor representation of a what I discovered to be a dynamic character. 

With all that being said, I must say I really enjoyed it, I finished it about a day and moved onto the second book in the series, Demon Bound (review coming soon), which I also finished in a little more than a day.  Jack and Pete have a very interesting relationship and one that I found myself getting drawn into even with all the mistrust and anger that is festering under the surface.  They are both twisted up inside over what happened 12 years ago when the spirit Jack summoned turned on him.  But when the ramifications of that night bring them back together, sparks start to fly and fireworks blow up.

While the plot was interesting, if a little bit predictable, it was the characters that engrossed form the beginning and while I enjoyed both of them, it was Jack that I found myself connecting with the most.  He had been through so much, most of which he had done to himself, which has made him angry and bitter, but you can still see the good in him.  The side of him that still cares and wants to live again is there, fighting to get out, and the transformation he makes throughout the book is wonderful to witness.  He is such an interesting character, as is Pete, that I can't wait to continue the series to see how they both develop.