Blood Cross (Jane Yellowrock, Book 2) [Mass Market Paperback]

Faith Hunter (Author)

Book Description

Release date: January 5, 2010

Jane Yellowrock is back on the prowl against the children of the night...

Leo Pellissier, head of the Vampire Council, has hired skinwalker Jane Yellowrock to hunt and kill one of their own who has broken sacred ancient rules. But Jane quickly realizes that in a community that is thousands of years old, loyalties run deep, mythos have real power, and the past often has more force than the present.

When the witches and blood magic--black magic--become involved, Jane Yellowrock needs new weapons and friends at her side to fight the malevolent evil that stalks New Orleans.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In the second Jane Yellowrock caper, New Orleans’ vampire council has hired the Cherokee-descended shapeshifter to hunt and kill a rogue who is unleashing young, insane vampires on humans, which is against the vampire code. But loyalties run deeper than law among the undead, and one local vampire VIP has a grudge against Jane for destroying his son. Jane gets into a complicated stew involving human and vampire rivalries, the ancient vampire-witch conflict, the New Orleans police, and her need to balance her beast and human natures. What with puzzles, chases (including a climactic one to rescue children), lots of blood, and some explicit sex, count on this to please thriller and dark romance fans alike. --Frieda Murray

From the Back Cover

As a vampire hunter and skinwalker, Jane Yellowrock is public enemy number one to the vampire community - even though she is also the key to their survival. Now, she's about to learn that working for the enemy is just as dangerous as hunting them.
 

The Vampire Council of New Orleans has hired Jane to hunt and kill one of their own who has broken sacred, ancient rules. But Jane quickly realizes that in a community that is thousands of years old, loyalties run deep, mythos have real power, and the past often has more force than the present.
 

With the help of her witch best friend, Molly, and local vigilantes, Jane finds herself caught between bitter rivalries - and closer than ever to the secret origin of the entire vampire race. But in a city of old grudges and dark magic, Jane will have to fight to protect both sides, even if no one will protect her.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Roc; Original edition (January 5, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451463072
• ISBN-13: 978-0451463074
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (106 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #103,578 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Faith Hunter, urban fantasy writer, was born in Louisiana and raised all over the south. Hunter fell in love with reading in fifth grade, and best loved SciFi, fantasy, and gothic mystery. She decided to become a writer in high school, when a teacher told her she had talent. Now, she writes full-time and works full-time in a hospital lab, (for the benefits) tries to keep house, and is a workaholic with a passion for travel, jewelry making, white-water kayaking, and writing. She and her husband love to RV, traveling with their dogs to whitewater rivers all over the Southeast.

The dark urban fantasy Skinwalker series, featuring Jane Yellowrock is composed of Skinwalker, Blood Cross, Mercy Blade, the compilation e-book Cat Tales, Raven Cursed, the compilation e-book Have Stakes Will Travel, death's Rival, and Blood TGrade (April 2013).

Her Rogue Mage novels, a dark, urban fantasy series--Bloodring, Seraphs, and Host--feature Thorn St. Croix, a stone mage in a post-apocalyptic, alternate reality, urban fantasy world. These novels are the basis for the world book / role playing game, Rogue Mage. Rogue Mage contains lots of fiction!

Under her pen name Gwen Hunter, she writes action adventure, mysteries, and thrillers. As Faith and Gwen, she has 28 books in print in 28 countries.

Along with other published writers, Faith participates in an online writing community geared to helping fantasy writers with tips and publishing advice called www.MagicalWords.net

Join the fans at the official Faith Hunter Facebook fan page now located at
https://www.facebook.com/official.faith.hunter or follow her on Twitter @HunterFaith
For more, including a list of her books, freebies, & upcoming events see www.FaithHunter.net and www.GwenHunter.com.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#67 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Fantasy

#72 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy

#67 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Fantasy

#72 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 39 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "WEAPONS?" HE ASKED. "YEAH," I SAID. KILLER LEGS." January 17, 2010

By Anthony Rich

Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Charlaine Harris remarked about Jane Yellowrock: "You have to respect a character who requires boulders in her backyard as a pre-employment requirement."

As an American-Indian shape-shifter, Jane is a gun for hire. Picking up where Skinwalker left off, she is still under contract to the local New Orleans Vamp Council. Her assignment - to hunt down rogue vampires and bring to justice whoever is responsible for making them. Complicating her job: Leo, the head master Vamp of the city, is still grieving the loss of his son and he blames Jane for his death. Apparently, vamps under extreme depression(called "Dolore")suffer mentally and their reasoning is impaired. If that isn't enough, a vamp war is brewing in the Big Easy. Her best friend, the witch Molly, is visiting with her two small children. One of whom, 6-yr-old Angelina, has growing powers of her own. But, will they be caught in the crossfire?

Everything is "ramped up" in this installment.

Romance and sex:(Leo's human servant, George Dumas, and police officer Rick LaFleur vie for Jane's attention)

The mythology of Vampires, as well as Jane's Native American culture (and Skinwalker past), are further explored and expanded.

The Battles are fierce. Luckily, Jane has new human allies in the police force and in the community. A man named Derek, leads a group of ex-soldiers trying to take back their community and forms an alliance with Jane.

I really liked Skinwalker. But I think Blood Cross is even better, and I can't wait to see those Killer Legs in another Jane Yellowrock adventure.

37 of 42 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars See Jane Run January 17, 2010

By E. Nolan VINE™ VOICE

Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Don't get me wrong, this wasn't a bad book -- I'd say about 3.5 stars, but the first book in the series was a *great* 5-star debut, so my hopes were pretty high.

This book still has Jane, so it has that going for it, and if you liked her, you'll end up liking this book, but let me (unfairly) set that aside and tell you my problems with the book:

*************************THERE WILL BE SPOILERS***************

1) Aside from Jane, all the other characters feel like shadows of theirselves from the first book. Rather than continuing to show why they are interesting, Hunter just assumes we will find them interesting based on their history.

2) This is particularly true of the vampire lord Leo, and is one of the worst failings of the book. In book one, Leo and Jane had an interesting, prickly but engaging back & forth relationship. In this book, for rather unconvincing plot reasons, *that* Leo is completely absent, and the Leo who does appear does things that will make it very hard to impossible to bring back that relationship. And he's not even *compellingly* crazy.

3) Jane's romantic life is a complete hash. We get one reasonably hot almost-sex scene that gives an interesting glimpse at what a full-on romantic encounter between two more-than-humans could be, then Jane ends up with Mr. Milk-toast, despite leading on the other guy time after time. Not to mention that even after the kids are kidnapped and the quest should be engaging Jane's full attention, we get several episodes of inappropriate flirting and innuendo.

4) A female vampire hints broadly to Jane that she has important information, and Jane smells the rouge-raiser on her, but never gets around to talking to her. Hey, didn't the exact same thing happen in book one?... Didn't Jane beat herself up about it then? Unless there is some unrevealed spell or something and we're *supposed* to think this is odd, I call trainwreck.

5) The whole bad-guy plot seems overcomplicated and hard to explain. This causes lots of dead-time in the "woo-woo room" where Jane reads documents or gets info-dumps from other characters.

6) I didn't like the whole way the young-rogues were handled. Yes, they were raised by black-magic: Bad! But that's not their fault. Given that the ex-marines have nets capable of incapicating vampires, the whole business of taking their heads seems extreme. In self-defense, yes. To prevent a kill, yes. As a policy, no. In fact, the two encounters Jane has with young rogues seem to leave her sympathetic to their plight, but she doesn't make the leap that maybe putting a price on their heads is wrong.

7) In fact, the denoument seems to argue that anything allowing the ten-year feral period to be shortened is wrong. Yes, black magic, human sacrifice: wrong, we get that. But if there is a way to keep from having to chain potentially intelligent beings in basements for ten years, would that be so bad? Jane seems to buy into the whole visiting-the-sins-of-the-fathers thing the crazy priestess is pushing.

8) The whole shifting to a male saber-tooth thing is forced. Apparently it's to lay some important groundwork about beast/Jane's new abilities, but it's deployed very limply and does nothing other than establish that Jane can shift male now -- [s]he just sulks in a ward the whole time of the shift. How can you turn into a saber-tooth tiger and not do something awesome? (There are a few other forced bits/hints about Jane/Beast, like Beast walking in Jane's skin and her remark about Jane being only a killer. Interesting, but totally un-followed-up-on).

9) Lots of to-ing & fro-ing rather than plot. Jane goes places, then she goes back to places, then she goes a third time..

Anyway. Perhaps that list is too harsh. I *did* enjoy reading the book, it's just that I was looking for something as good as the first book. Next time for sure :-) Read more ›

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Blood Cross January 24, 2010

By Mindy Mymudes

Format:Mass Market Paperback

For me to get into Urban Fantasy, the world needs to be exactly parallel to my own, the laws of science obeyed, the cities not so changed as to be unrecognizable. The only difference is that the stuff of nightmares are normal, prowling the cities.

When I picked up the first of the series, Skinwalker, I thought, 'nice book'. But as I delved deeper, it reminded me more like a wine tasting, there was so much more in the glass. Nice wine, with subtle hints of oak, cherry, smoke. The series is a little different in that you need to read two shorts, one on her website called Kits, and one in the anthology Strangebrew to really get up to speed. Though not entirely necessary, it helps.

Like a good wine, the Jane Yellowstone series has a complex web of flavors. Jane is a woman who is discovering exactly what she is, who has lost many of the memories of her youth, and shares her skin with a Beast (Mountain lion), who has her own set of memories she occasionally shares with Jane.

Her abilities to walk in the skin of Beast, as well as other animals, give her the ability to hunt other top predators. She's a rogue vampire hunter, which seems like a trite role currently, but Faith Hunter's take is very different. Her best friend, a witch, brings out the softer part of Jane, a need to protect Molly the witches children (Kits, in Beast Speak)

The author is a master of weaving and closing off threads, only to weave another. She offers her own vision as to why Vampires are so closely allied to Christian Icons and explains the myth fully in Blood Cross. She brings in new characters, and finishes others, and gives Jane a chance to grow into her own skin.

To me, some of the most unique parts of the book occurs when Beast gets her chance to 'speak'.... In the way Temple Grandin has explained how animals think more like an autistic, Beast thinks in action, smells, and the present. A very distinct voice to contrast against the very human voice of Jane.

I'm looking forward to more in the series, getting answers to the Cherokee Skinwalker legend and how Jane will grow. Read more ›