Faith Hunter
Skinwalker (2009)
First off, I love this cover. Yeah, she has a silly amount of cleavage, but aside from that, the cover gives a very good description of what the character’s attitude. Bike? Check. Riding leathers? Check. Shotgun? Check. Get out of my way attitude? Check. Kudos to whomever at Roc does their fantasy covers–another fantastic job.
Following on her story in Strange Brew, we follow Jane Yellowrock to New Orleans, where she has been hired by the local vampire council to take down a rogue who had been creating a bad (worse?) reputation for the local vampires.
Jane is a skinwalker–a human who shift into other creatures. She primarily shifts into a mountain lion, but is capable of shifting into any form is she has template DNA to copy.
Yeah, that’s right. Although she has a fetish, she recognizes that she needs the DNA of a creature before she can shift into the creature. Even better, we learn what happens to the excess mass if she becomes a smaller or larger creature.
I love authors who have truly thought out their world building.
Jane has no memory of her past. All she remembers is walking out of the woods at the age of around 12, able to speak no English, and therefore a ward of the state to be raised in an orphanage.
With the exception of her best friend back in NC, a witch named Molly (who has her own secrets to keep) no one else in the world knows what Jane is–or even that she is different from other humans. And she prefers to keep it that way.
This story is good. Very good. As I said previously, the author has considered the questions previously associated with weres/skinwalkers, and has a rather elegant solution I must say (A solution that’s more than “it’s magic” [Not that there's anything wrong with "it's magic" it's just nice to see someone come up with a way it would work.]).
Additionally, Jane is an interesting and complex character. She’s a competent and confident woman who has her head screwed on straight, despite the mystery of her past and her nature.
If you have not read the short story that precedes Skinwalker, you’ll be fine. The details are there there to pick up, and are not necessary to this story.
One detail–although the arc of the story was completed, details were left open, and there will obviously be another book continuing the story of Jane Yellowrock. We weren’t left hanging, but it came close to being one of those annoying endings that all but forces you to read the next book. Hopefully, there won’t be any of that in the next book, as I want to continue to spend time with these characters, and don’t need my arm twisted to do so.
Rating: 8/10
Blood Cross (2010)
Skinwalker is the first Jane Yellowrock book, and Blood Cross takes place immediately after the events in that book. Jane is still in New Orleans hunting the rogue maker vampire. Leo is still enraged at Jane over the death of his son, and Molly and her children are staying with Jane while Big Evan is out of the country.
I think I may have enjoyed Blood Cross even more than SkinwalkerJane continues to learn more about her powers and even discovers bits of her past, while Beast becomes more and more of an active participant in Jane’s mind.
I think Beast may be what I like best about this story–and there was a lot to like. Beast has her own personality and ideas that become stronger and stronger through the story. I particularly liked Beast’s protectiveness of the “kits”–Molly’s children–and how those feelings seemed to bleed through to Jane. She also seems to know far better than Jane, what Jane needs in terms of visiting the Grandmothers.
We learn about the history of the vampires, and although I have to admit I saw part of the story coming, she did do a nice job of tying things together and making sense of the varied legends and stories regarding vampires.
Interestingly, I perused some of the reviews on Amazon, and one of the things I liked about the story annoyed several of the readers, and that is Jane is NOT invincible; she gets into trouble and danger as has to rely upon her friends and allies to help her. I am dislike heroines who have the powers to do anything and survive anything. Additionally, one of the things Jane needs to learn is to trust other people. She started with Molly, and is slowly learning to trust others, and that’s a good thing.
Although Jane is attracted to several of the men in her life, and things get hot & heavy a couple times, all boinking occurs off the page. Which is perfectly fine with me.
Yes, this book is part of a series, but the story arcs of the books so far are contained within a single book, which always gets bonus points from me.
You could conceivably read Blood Cross without having read Skinwalker, but in doing so you’d miss part of back story as well as part of her growth.
Rating: 8/10
Bloodring (2006)
Thorn is a neomage. But unlike the rest of her mage brethren, she does not live in a mage Enclave, but instead is hiding in the small town of Mineral City running a gem and jewelry show with her friends–none of who know she is a neomage in hiding. Unfortunately for Thorn, the kidnapping of her ex-husband brings law enforcement officials into town.
The world in which Thorn lives is post-apocalyptic in a very interesting way: angels came and pretty much took humans to task for their misdeeds and misbehavior. There are three types of beings: humans, seraphs, and neomages. The relationship between the three is both complex and somewhat confusing, and I’m still not sure I’m clear.
One thing that I did care for was the high boink possibility that went through the story. I don’t see why a humanoid species would develop estrus later in their evolution–it doesn’t make biological sense to me, but then we still don’t know how neomages came to be, so I suppose if they were engineered beings, that might serve to limit the population.
Regardless, books that constantly dwell on sex tend not to be my favorites, so that took the book down a notch for me.
Otherwise, I thought the character development was very good–and I quite liked many of the characters, though I thought some of them might be a little too good with not quite enough flaws, but this book was written from Throrn’s POV, so I don’t think the characters were actually perfect, only that Thorn idolized them a wee bit.
This is the first book in a series, and although the main story arc did conclude in this book, if I’d bought this book before the following two books I probably would have been a little annoyed.
Rating: 7/10
Seraphs (2007)
Thorn St. Croix is now out of the closet as a neomage. Half the town wants to thank her for saving them, the other half wants to burn her at the stake. To make things worse, there are angels trapped under the mountain, and it looks like Thorn is the only one who has a chance of getting them out.
The things that bother me about the first book, still bother me about this one; the “forced heat” when seraphs and neomages are together (or anyone even related to a seraph) is the biggest one. Which of course happens repeatedly to Thorn. (And then there’s her ex-husband, but that’s something else entirely.)
However, the story continues to be fascinating, and even if I’m still a bit uncertain about the world, I really want to know what happens to Thorn–and more importantly I want to understand why the world is the way it is (though I have a feeling I’ll be denied on that last bit). I like Thorn and her friends, and although I still find her constantly going into heat annoying, it wasn’t completely distracting from the story.
I just don’t understand why all books that are supposed to appeal to women have to be filled with sex. I mean, really. Are we seen as being incapable of being interested in plot and character development?
Although the story arc is completed in this book, I wouldn’t have wanted to have finished this book if I hadn’t had the next in the series waiting.
Rating: 7/10
Host (2007)
This seems to be the conclusion of Faith Hunters Rogue Mage series. I say seems to be, because although the story arc was completed, there were threads left hanging. Now that could be good story telling, or she could be hoping to add to the series later. I’m hoping its the former and not the later.
Thorn St Croix is now (at least in the eyes of most) the town mage for Mineral City. She is expecting another attack from the Darkness under the Trine, but is hoping they catch a break and have time to regroup before the next battle. Unfortunately, their rest and recovery are interrupted when a mage from Atlanta comes to town, and his attitude is one that offends Thorn, Rupert, Audric and just about everyone.
I’m still not sure how I feel about this third book. Although I like where the story went, the first battle scene seemed to go on forever. This was an issue because I really wanted to go to bed. I’m also not sure how I feel about the conclusion regarding Thorn’s heart and her bed. This was one of the things that made it feel like there may be more books in the future. (However, I think I’ll like it better if the author leaves it as it stands.)
Actually, I think that’s where my ambivalence is coming from: the book concluded without tying up all the loose ends, which made it feel like she wants to write more about these characters.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a long series as much as anyone–as long as each book concludes the story arc contained within. This series (so far) did not, and I am not enamored of such series.
So let me step back a bit and look at the other parts of the series. I do like the characters-especially Thorn and Audric. In fact, I wish we’d have had a little more time with Audric.
I like where the story went, although in this book the battle scenes felt like they went on forever. I get where she was going with the whole mage-seraph uncontrollable lust thing, but still… I didn’t much like it.
So, I’m of mixed opinion of Host. It was good, but it wasn’t great, and I don’t know if I’d want to reread the series.
Rating: 6/10
Jane Yellowrock: Skinwalker (2009), Blood Cross (2010)
Rogue Mage: Bloodring (2006), Seraphs (2007), Host (2007)
