Customer Reviews

Night Shift (Jill Kismet, Hunter, Book 1)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Jill Kismet is a Hunter with a Hellbreed mark. She is a former prostitute pulled from the streets by her deceased mentor and lover Mikhail. She polices the Nightside, fighting demons that cross over from Hell. In this new series by Lilith Saintcrow we have many similarities to Dante (Danny) Valentine. Jill has a mark same as Danny. She uses a whip instead of sword. Her silver charms in her hair tinkle and the ruby at her throat sparks whenever danger approaches, much like the sparking tattoo on Danny' face. However, I found this book much easier to read. Jill is tough like Danny and not quite human. She meets Saul who is a were cougar and works with the FBI. Saul is helping track a rogue were. A were is needed to track rogues but are not good against hellbreed. A hunter tracks hellbreed but are not good up against rogues. Overall, I found the story to be very entertaining. It had non-stop action and a little romance. Hopefully, this romance won't go the same way Danny and Japh went. The next book is in my wish list. I liked this new series very much and if you liked the Dante Valentine series I think you will like this one also.

Lilith Saintcrow has crafted another hit series with the debut of Night Shift.

Determined, yet slightly vulnerable, hellspawn hunter Jill Kismet, works with Were-cat FBI agents to hunt a rogue Were and the hellspawn that is involved in several gruesome murders.

Saintcrow crafts depth in her heroine showing her to be a damaged, but determined woman who keeps going and going long after anyone else would have given up. Kismet's personality quirk provides comic relief as she flings bad jokes and puns with a "Get it? Arf, arf," after each one. The protagonist is instantly sympathetic through Saintcrow's smooth use of flashbacks providing the back-story necessary to understand how Kismet became a hunter.

Interesting characters are peppered throughout the story allowing Saintcrow a colorful palette of people from which to choose to focus on as the series continues. Dominic and Harper, two Were-FBI friends, bring Saul, hunky country Were, when they journey to St. Luz to investigate the murderous rampage. Through flashbacks, Kismet's deceased teacher, Mikhail Tolstoi is introduced. The reader also meets Pericles (hellspawn Kismet is indebted to), Galina (the local Sanctuary leader), a plethora of human police and forensic agents, as well as exorcists Avery, Eva, Benito, and Wallace.

Lyrical language and movie-worthy fight scenes are staples in Saintcrow's novels, and this one is no exception. In Night Shift, Saincrow's usual beautiful language is complemented with almost Chandleresque noir phrases: "No matter how tired I am, dusk always wakes me up like six shots of espresso and a bullet whizzing past" (47). Her fight scenes contain blood spatters that hang in the air and a billowing coat that snap out parachute-like when Kismet jumps from roofs. The scenes are so well painted it is like reading a graphic novel.

If Night Shift is any indication of the quality of the remainder of the series, Jill Kismet just may supersede Dante Valentine as Saintcrow's greatest heroine.

The second novel in the series, Hunter's Prayer, also an Orbit release, will be available August 26, 2008.

I read the book start to finish in four days. And I got really disappointed with the romance plot so I decided to write about it to vent my frustration.

If the romance plot were taken out of the book, nothing would be lost. If Jill's romantic other were to have not been written the main plot wouldn't have changed at all. It's as if the book was finished then one character and a few scenes were written in. Plus I have no idea why she likes the guy, she never said beyond he smells nice to her enhanced sense of smell. Nothing about liking his behavior, his appearance, or anything about his character. Far as I can read she's an independent woman and he comes along to run her life with no discussion, he tells her what to do. I can't remember him asking her anything besides "you okay?". Eighty percent of her reactions to him are negative, he crowds her, he forces and assumes things. Also, when he's not around there is only once section where she thinks about him, out of sight out of mind. I don't like the character and I don't think Saintcrow developed him at all.

I'm on the fence about checking out the next book. Maybe if I'm bored enough...

I read this book in one day. I just couldn't wait to get it over with. There was just way too much self-analysis/self-doubt/self-hating, to the point of it taking up pages. This story just didn't grap me and I was so looking forward to it. I will read Hunter's Prayer, hopefully Jill won't be so pathetic in that book. I found Jill's character to be very depressing. Lilith is very good at describing a tortured soul but at some point the character has to be strong on the inside as they are on the outside. Without that it just seems like pages of whining flash backs.

I picked Night Shift up because I really enjoyed Lilith Saintcrow's Dante Valentine series. It took me about fifty pages to really get into this new book but once I was in I was hooked and it was really worth it. At first I wasn't sure how I felt about the story's main character Jill Kismet, but she really started to grow on me. As her story and past unfolded I really started to like her. I enjoyed seeing her strengths as well as her weaknesses exposed as the book progressed. I also quite enjoyed Saul as a character and hope to see more of him in the next book.

The story is very fast paced and the world setting is very dark and gritty. I found it all very enjoyable and interesting and I am looking forward to the next book already. If you like dark urban fantasy this is a great book for you.

I usually love Lilith Saintcrow's books, The circle Lightfall series, and the first three of the Dante Valentine books, but this one is just a rehash of so many other books out there. I did not like the heroine, there is no romance to speak of and the plot is very minor and subject to the action. There is alot of action but it is so dark it truly turned me off. Dante Valentine had some redeeming characteristics, I truly don't know where this character was going. It seems the author has invented her own nightside.

Jill Kismet is a former prostitute who finally murders her pimp. While leaving the murder scene she is caught up by the hunter for Santa Luz. Mikhail is a hunter who polices the hellbreed. He also polices the people who try to form deals with the demons. They are called Traders because they trade something to hell for whatever they want. For some reason he takes her for his student. Since she is not strong enough to really become a hunter, he convinces her to Trade with the strongest hellbreed in town. (I found that particuliar unbelievable, that he would go against the things he has upheld for his respected career.) Anyway he has been killed by a demon six months previously.

Pericles aka Perry is the strongest hellbreed in town and he is the head of the criminal faction. He trades strength to her for an hour of her time every month. ( seemed like she traded one kind of servitude for another). Hellbreed look and act human but their outsides are like shells with black ichor inside.

Saul is a were cougar who has come to town with another were couple to hunt the rogue were. He winds up staying with her at her warehouse home.

From the first time she scents the killer of four cops, I knew she was looking for a were and a hellbreed, because the story had already said that they hated each other. The search for the rogues has plenty of action with Jill throwing her weight, power, and mouth around. She single-handedly goes in a bar and kills every hellbreed there. When Saul asks how many, she says she quit counting at twenty. She doesn't even sleep she is always out doing her job. Which seems to consist of busting heads and crushing shells.

She finally meets her match when the hellbreed who runs NY comes to town. Perry must intervene to keep her alive. She learns that the hellbreed with the rogue is the bad dude's daughter. There was one part that I liked and that has to do with the daughter of Arkady.

But this is really only a so-so read. Three stars is all I can give it and I definitely will not be buying the next one until I see some reviews. If you are desperate for something to read it will do but it is so much like a rehash of Dante Valentine and several other books out there that I personally did not find it any more than passable.

My Thoughts:

I have mixed feelings about this one. One the one hand I loved Jill Kismet, she was tough, gritty, and a no nonsense kind of women, exactly the kind of heroine I want to read about. She also has a little bit of softness just underneath her hard shell. It felt like I was there when she had flashbacks of her teacher and her hard life as a street walker before she became a hunter. I like that she showed a little of this softness even though she tried her hardest to keep it hidden from her friends.

On the other hand, the world this story takes place in I had a hard time wrapping my head around. I spent the first half of the book thinking that I was not reading the first in the series that I was missing some part of the story that explained more about this world. When I finally accepted that there wasn't any previous books and just let it wrap around me I found I started to like the world more and more. There were times when reading I couldn't decided if I loved this or hated it, it kept me shifting my emotions which I think was a good thing, because it kept me guessing and I didn't know what was around the bend.

The ending was bittersweet, Jill knew that the hellbreed and rogue-were that she was hunting had to be stopped but at the same time she understood there was more to them than first met the eye and it was hard to watch (read) as their lives came to an end.

Overall I really enjoyed Night Shift. Mostly for the characters themselves, especially Jill and Saul. I would recommend this for those who love hard core action urban fantasy, there was quite a bit of violence and not much in the way of romance. I will definitely be buying this series and will be trying others from Saintcrow.

I picked up the first Jill Kismet book by Lilith Saintcrow because I enjoyed her YA series (Strange Angels) enough to check out her other works. I could tell she wasn't a top-notch writer, but I really liked not having to wait an outrageously long time in-between books like I usually have to- She really drills them out, and I'm eagerly awaiting her third installment of Strange Angels.

I finished Night Shift in just 2-3 days, however, I found myself wishing there was more of just about everything. The character Perry is a truly interesting one but there just wasn't enough interaction between him and Jill. Jill doesn't even seem to have much of a connection with the werecougar and romance interest, Saul Dustcircle, though he clearly feels they're meant for one another through his animal instinct no doubt. I found myself wondering when I was going to get to the good parts-My eyes were just itching to find the next good fight scene. The book just seems to center too much on what the female lead, Jill Kismet, is thinking instead of a strong sequence of actions that keeps you on the edge of your seat. As the fiesty female heroine I wanted her to turn out as, she just didn't score well in her role. It is an alright read, not something to pay full price for or get very excited about. The characters and most of the connections they have to one another just lack the oomph that gets the reader hooked and ready to have to bounce a check if it means getting the next book in the series sooner rather than later.

I've heard her Dante Valentine series is better and that the Jill Kismet series is addictive if you just keep reading. I'll give both another try when I'm bored.

Jill Kismet is the sort of heroine we can all get behind. The book is action packed, but heart felt. It shows a world where the unexplained is dealt with by professionals, in tandem with regular law enforcement. Not the usual separation of the human and the otherworldly. When things go bump in the night, Jill is called in, so ordinary people can go on blissfully unaware. Throw in an odd symbiotic relationship with a demon, and a crush from an FBI werecat, and the story is complex and hard to put down.

Ok, I loved the first Dante Valentine books, in fact I liked books 2 and 3 better than the first one. Then came book 4 and 5, which I wanted pitch across the room and couldn't finish either one! I was so hoping for a fresh start with Night Shift. I'm almost afraid to say, that I really liked this new series, for fear of jinxing it! Yes, Jill Kismet is very similiar to Dante's character, but I'm hoping that she doesn't turn out to be the winey, neurotic mess that Dante ended up being. I love the character of Saul and the other were's, and I even liked Jill, giving her the benefit of the doubt. Perry's character just plain creeped me out at times! The scene (which I won't detail with a spoiler) about the funeral pyre, literally almost made me cry! I am hesitantly waiting for the next in the series. Hoping against hope that Jill 'Kismet' will NOT share Dante's 'fate' and make me want to shred future books!
I would definately recommend this one.