Raven Cursed – Review

Raven Cursed by Faith Hunter
Released: January 2012
Publisher: Penguin Group
Age Group: Adult
Pages: 353
Source: Birthday Present!
Jane Yellowrock is a shape-shifting skinwalker and vampire hunter for hire. But lately instead of just slaying vampires, she’s been working for them.

The vampires of Asheville, North Carolina, want to establish their own clan, but since they owe loyalty to the Master Vampire of New Orleans they must work out the terms with him. To come up with an equitable solution, he sends an envoy with the best bodyguard blood money can buy: Jane Yellowrock.

But when a group of local campers are attacked by something fanged, Jane goes from escort to investigator. Unless she wants to face a very angry master vampire, she will have to work overtime to find the killer. It’s a good thing she’s worth every penny.  (from faithhunter.net)

My Thoughts:

I love Jane Yellowrock – not only is she tall and rides a motorcycle, she totally kicks butt!  This is the fourth book in the series by Faith Hunter, following Skinwalker, Blood Cross, and Mercy Blade.  

Jane is a skin-walker, and as far as she knows, the last of her kind.  This makes her different than the were-animals present in these books. She is also a vampire slayer.  Specifically, a rouge-vampire slayer – when one goes crazy and begins killing humans or other vampires, Jane is called in to stake them – or whatever it takes to eliminate them.  The “person” who calls her is Leonard Eugene Zacharie Pellissier, the Master Of the City of New Orleans, who controls the hunting license for every vampire below the Mason-Dixon line, from the eastern border of Texas at the Sabine River, east to the Atlantic, and south to the Gulf, with the exception of Florida and Atlanta, GA.

In Raven Cursed, Jane has traveled to Asheville, North Carolina to provide security for a vamp parley.  Lincoln Shaddock, the most powerful “fanghead” in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, had been applying to Leo for sixty years for the right to become a master of the city.  Leo had turned him down – until now.

Jane is running a security team to provide safe transport to the arriving vamps, and Gregoire, Leo’s representative and heir.  This should be a relatively easy assignment, as the hotel has provided vampire safe suites, and Leo has provided armored SUV’s.  Unfortunately they didn’t plan for rouge werewolves, a grindylow (a “pet” who polices were’s to make sure they don’t purposefully infect anyone), murders, witches using blood magic and Ricky Bo – her on again off again boyfriend.

Jane’s personal and professional life collide, and she faces the possibility of losing both her friends and her job.  This book includes vampires, witches (both good and bad), were-cats, were-wolves, grindylows, and human law enforcement officers.  In a world where humans have accepted the existence of supernatural beings formerly believed to be legend, the burden of proof is on the “supernats” to maintain their innocence in the murders happening around Asheville.  Jane risks her life, her inner beast and her closest friends to protect the vampires who hired her, and protect innocent humans and other supernats from the vengeful werewolves wreaking havoc in the North Carolina mountains.

I always enjoy Jane Yellowrock, and if you like Paranormal Fiction/Paranormal Romance, give Faith Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock series a try!

Skinwalker

“Skinwalker” by Faith Hunter
Published July 7, 2009

Jane Yellowrock,(Dalonige i Digadoli), a Cherokee Skinwalker whose legal, but completely false, birth certificate puts her at age 29, is a vampire hunter. Her past is beyond reach, as she woke up wondering in the woods, naked, scarred and without memory of the English language. Before that she remembers bits and pieces of her father & grandmother, and her change into “Beast”, a part that is still with her. She believes she is over 100 years old, and her shape shifting and years living as “Beast”, a mountain lion, have kept her physical human age young.

Her shape shifting gives her abilities far beyond a normal human. She can scent and track, has better than normal vision and hearing and can move more than humanly quick – almost vamp quick. She can shift into almost any animal, although big cats are her favorite. She’s still not sure how she and Beast have come to their current duality, but they work together well in her line of work.

She is contracted by an old vamp named Katherine Fontaneau, of Kaitie’s Ladies) to come to New Orleans and track and kill a rogue vamp that is killing indiscriminately between humans and other vamps. Beast names this rogue “Liver Eater”, and with Beast’s help and at times, Beast’s form, Jane is able to track and kill the “Liver Eater”, who she finds is also a shape shifter and she believes, a Cherokee.

Faith Hunter writes this series with a believable knowledge of vamps, their blood servants and hierarchy, and enough knowledge of “The People” and their practices and beliefs to make it a very interesting read. Jane is precocious and aggressive, and her mouth gets her into as much trouble as her chosen line of work. Laugh out loud funny in parts, hard to put down all the way through.