Faith Hunter
A year ago Jane nearly lost her life taking down an entire
blood family of deadly rogue vampires that preyed on the helpless local
populace of an Appalachian town. Now, after months of recuperation, she’s back
and ready to fight again. Except this time, she’s hired by those she’s trained
to kill—vampires.
Jane Yellowrock is the last of her kind—a skinwalker of
Cherokee descent who can turn into any creature she desires and hunts vampires
for a living. Back from hiatus, she’s hired by Katherine Fontaneau, one of the
oldest vampires in New Orleans and the madam of Katies’s Ladies, to hunt a
powerful rogue vampire who’s killing other vamps.
Amidst a bordello full of real “ladies of the night,” and a
hot Cajun biker with a panther tattoo who stirs her carnal desire, Jane must
stay focused and complete her mission—or else the next skin she’ll need to save
just may be her own.
Publisher
ROC
ISBN
9780451462800
Rosy's Scrawlings on Skinwalker
This book was addictive from the start. Having a practical and deadly fighter with an inner big cat spirit that doesn't always want to play along and has desires of its own can mean trouble of the highest order. Or a great deal of fun, depending on your perspective.
Jane has a character I could actually believe was strong and capable in a fight rather than one sporting weapons more as adornments. She has an unusual background and this only adds to her abilities to travel with her stake and kill on request. "Have stake, will travel" is her calling card and her main victims are supposed to be vampires, although when the dust settles this isn't always so. I also appreciated that Jane got into and out of certain tricky situations without either being constantly rescued or pulling off a completely unbelievable act. A certain amount of suspension of disbelief is required, obviously, as this is fantasy fiction but within reason Jane holds her own properly. In other words, Jane is a kick-arse character who can be identified with and held in regard.
The world of the book is less gritty inner city and more a wide-spread built up suburban area near hills and a forest, at least from my impressions. It doesn't take Jane long to travel between built up areas and the forest or graveyard etc. The landscape is varied and often stark. The forest becomes spooky and enclosed, the graveyard too open and arid while the centre of town seems to be made of one fortress after another, not to mention dingy bars and old houses. The reason I mention the world of Jane Yellowrock is that it isn't a constant blur of gritty grey city buildings or a whitewash of standard housing which can crop up in urban fantasy. The place where Jane stays is permanently cut into my memory as though it were one I'd walked through.
The action is face paced and fun. Magic is included. The world leaves you alternating between dark claustrophobia and brilliantly lit agrophobia. The men are nice and nasty in turn with each man quite capable of and willing to be both. The romance is laid back and slow paced despite being the hands on type due to the inner big cat's desires. As one who can easily be put off by flower romantic stories I can attest that this one didn't disturb me at all and was in fact rather intriguing for being a three way romance that included a long dead big cat. Unusual, no?
All in all, this book was just plain addictive. I now by all the titles of this series before reading the blurb or even seeing it on sale somewhere. They're on my list. You know the one, that list book addicts have that contains the titles of all as yet to buy and to be released books that you know you'll love. That one.
I'd suggest this book to: to women who love urban fantasy and subtle dark romantic stories where things don't always work out with the man or men in question. I'd also suggest this book to anyone who likes to read about rarely touched on paranormal beings and monsters as this series, while having vampires and werewolves does have witches and of course the extraordinarily rare skinwalker.
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