Blood Cross

Blood Cross (2010) Faith Hunter

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

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