Customer Reviews

Skinwalker (Jane Yellowrock, Book 1)

5 star:		(68)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If Mercy Thompson and Kate Daniels are some of your favorite heroines, then you don't want to miss out on Faith Hunter's new character, Jane Yellowrock. Jane is a vampire-hunter and skinwalker. But she's much more interesting than Anita Blake, and she's a different kind of walker than Mercy Thompson.

Jane hunts and kills rogue vampires for a living. The only thing she knows about vampires are wrapped up in the ones that go crazy and need to be put down. She's also a skinwalker. Missing pieces of her memories as a young child, all she knows is that she shares her body with Beast, the mountain lion she shifts to when on the hunt. As a skinwalker she can take on other animal forms, but she has a very close tie with Beast. They both have their own memories, thoughts, and will - which makes her a very interesting character indeed.

Jane is called to New Orleans by Katie, an old vampire, who hires her to track and kill the rogue vampire preying on not only the humans in the city but other vampires as well. Turns out this rogue vampire is a lot more older, more powerful, and much more harder to track than Jane thought. While on the hunt, she's also introduced to the vampire world: their lifestyle, politics, and the who's who of vamp society.

Trying not to give all the great stuff away in the review, I will tell you this: there are some really great storylines here. One, the vampire rogue is more than he appears to be. Two, the missing pieces of memory from Jane's childhood return, which answers all her questions about her heritage, her clan, and just how she and Beast became one. And three, all the characters in the novel have great potential.

As an introductory novel, Faith Hunter laid down some solid foundation. Jane is a great character and Hunter makes her interesting enough for readers to want to know more about her past and where she's heading. The details into the vampire world are easy enough to understand, I didn't feel boggled down with some complex history or feel the need to have to memorize names or dates for later novels. All the secondary characters were just as intersting as Jane and Beast themselves, that I just have to know what happens to them and hope to see them in the next Jane Yellowrock story. Skinwalker is written smoothly and rich in detail and story. Kim Harrison calls Hunter, " A new, strongly unique voice in the dark fantasy genre", and that alone is enough in my book!

For those of us who read the "kickass female hunter of supernatural whatever" genre, you know that more and more authors have been jumping on this bandwagon, authors who seem to think that as long as you include pages and pages of expository sex between the heroine and the creatures-du-jour then they've created an "urban fantasy".

Thankfully, this author has concentrated on actually providing us with both a complex heroine and complex secondary characters - none of whom immediately fall into each others beds or bodies. Not to mention creating an intriguing storyline, set in one of the genre's favorite places, New Orleans. She's created an interesting universe involving a vampire society that coexists with the human world, and a heroine who is not what she seems on the surface, and whose personal history is still partially a mystery to her as well as us. People get hurt and people die in this story. Not everyone is what they seem, or fits the heroine's mental stereotypes.

This was one of those books that when I picked it up, I couldn't put it down until I finished it. I bought into the world that the author created and I began to care about the characters. I liked Jane Yellowrock because although she's self-assured on the surface, she retains a vulnerability because her past history is veiled to her, and she doesn't know how old she is or where she lived or what happened to her biological family. She also has the added burden of knowing that the action that allowed her to live beyond her normal life span was the result of inadvertent black magic - something that horrifies her conscience. I appreciated the fact that while the male characters in the story were attractive to, and attracted to Jane, that's as far as it went in this book. The author apparently understands that anticipation and mental fantasies are more intriguing to a reader than immediate wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am consummation of sexual attraction.

I am really looking forward to the next book in this series.

I was a fan of The Rogue Mage Series before I heard that Skinwalker was coming out. Those were great books. So I was hoping that Skinwalker would be just as good. It was awesome!! Jane Yellowrock and Beast make a great duo of vampire hunting, ancient evil slaying chics. Their personalities are quite different and sometimes at odds with each other, all the while occupying the same space. It was great to watch the two interact with each other as they found themselves hunting down an evil creature who was terrorizing New Orleans.
Hired by the local New Orleans vamp council, Jane roars into the city on her Harley and sets up shop. After a few cat and mouse games with the locals, she picks up on the scent of the killer, and finds herself in more than one life and death situation.
Excellent character backgrounds and development by the author as she builds a great foundation for this series. I am left wondering what's next for Jane. I can't wait to find out.

I have to say I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I will admit upon buying it I prepared myself for another in a long line of post-Anita, post-Sookie, post Sonja Blue [...] female supernatural romances. To be honest I also had reservations about the horrible cover. But this book had a lot more substance than many of others I have read recently.

I really enjoyed the pseudo-science of the magic in the books (especially revolving around borrowed mass) and her calorie intake etc. Her worlds magic has a very tangible feel and I liked that.

And the author really used the sense of smell effectively to tell the story, and a lot of the mystery surrounds Jane using her nose more than looking for more traditional clues. Using the assets of a shapeshifter to solve a mystery, especially when others don;t know it, was an intriguing take on the genre.

The book did have a slow and clunky start, Jane was a little too tough to be believable at times and alternatively a little too amateur/soft, and I found the Beast's chapters frustrating to read. Mainly because of the very caveman-like prose "me like food, night is good etc" but after awhile I did not notice it as much. I liked the characters, and the old school noir feel of everybody hiding something etc. Also the incorporation of Native American beasties into the cannon is welcome, as well as the hot and deep fried feel of NO. So overall it was a smart book, well researched, and well written. The character, as we grow to know her better, has potential to be quite memorable in a sea of imposters. So all in all worth a read.

I have mixed feelings on this one. It's an urban fantasy, told from the first person point of view of a butt kicking female lead. Basic plot: Jane Yellowrock is a shapeshifter of mysterious origins who hunts vampires for a living. So, pretty similar to Anita Blake, Riley Jenson, Sookie Stackhouse, Mercy Thompson...

This opens me up to the cliche count. I think you can measure a book's quality by how many cliches it uses and how well in manages to pull them off. I don't want to imply that this book has no original ideas, because that really isn't the case. But there are so many barrowed bits here that I can't resist commenting on them.

1)The alpha heroine: I buy books with this cliche on purpose. The world of urban fantasy and paranormal romance has lately become populated with kick ass female voices. How does Jane Yellowrock measure up? She has the entire package: orphan of hazy origins, mysterious powers that make her able to fight the bad guys in the first place, loner/missfit tendencies, but enough humor and heart that she's likeable. And I did like Jane, despite the fact that she's in many ways the same as so many heroines that have come before. The few things that are really different about her are pretty cool. I loved her "Beast" and how that entire plot took the concept of alter-ego to a whole different level.

2) The vampires: In probably 90% of vampire based fantasy I've come across, vamps are orginized in some bizarre hierarchy with all of these elaborate rules. Almost as often in this type of book theres a vampire high up on the food chain that wants to seduce our plucky heroine. Usually of European origin, often French.(Did Leo remind anyone else of Jean-Claude from the Anita Blake books?) Leo was pretty disinteresting to me for these reasons. To be honest, all of the vampires were disinteresting. But Leo was especially disapointing because I so wanted him to stand out. But no, he's stuffy, commanding, self-possesed, and predictable. Only at the very end did I get the impression that he might have some deeper, more interesting place in Jane's life in future books.

3) Along the lines of the stuffy vampire cliche, there often seems to be the more down to earth counter part that the heroine is also potentially attracted to. In this case that person was Rick. I was crossing all my fingers that it wasn't going to turn into a love-triangle situation. It hasn't...yet. But Rick is about the same level of interesting as Leo in my oppinion. I just didn't care for him. Too average.

4) The villain: Actually, this one started out like it was going to be just another cliche but turned out much more interesting. I thought that Jane was dealing with some B-movie style monster that, while difficult to kill, is mindless and impossible to care about. This is done very often in urban fantasy (check the Riley Jenson series for examples). I was proven wrong when the end took a little twist that I won't give away. I wish that the author had done a better job of building up to that point. If only Jane had more one on one interaction with the villain prior to the climax, the villain might have come off as even less cheesey.

All in all, this was an ok book. I was pretty entertained. I hope it improves as the series progresses; I will be reading the other books

"Skinwalker" is set in modern day, where vampires have recently been 'discovered' and accepted into society. Other than that, there aren't mythical creatures or magical abilities. The main character, J--, is the exception. An american indian, she has a unique power to change into an animal, and a second "animal" personality that talks to her. This is really cool! J-- comes to New Orleans to hunt a rogue vampire, having been hired by "civilized" vampires who don't want the rogue to blacken their name. There is nice tension between J-- and the civilized vampires, as neither quite trusts the other.

What makes this book great is the fascinating setting and portrayal of J-- and the vampires. The plot is nicely done, and ends well. The setting, character development and unique fantasy elements are outstanding!

I liked Hunter's previous books, but found them pretty forgetable. This one left me amazed.

Couldn't do this one with a single haiku, so here's my two-haiku review:

She kills rogue vampires
Shape-shifter, woman and Beast
Struggling for control

Complex mystery
Multi-layered characters
Outstanding story

Really liked this book... a lot!

The fantasy shelves are rife these days with tough ladies fighting supernatural crime, but Faith Hunter delivers something original.

The originality of _Skinwalker_ begins with Jane Yellowrock, the heroine. Jane is a loner and a smart aleck, but her similarities to the stereotypical urban-fantasy protagonist end there. Jane is a skinwalker -- a shapeshifter drawn from Native American folklore -- and she lives in a sort of symbiosis with "Beast," the spirit of a mountain lion. Some chapters are narrated from Beast's perspective and Faith Hunter does a great job of altering her style to fit Beast's feline thought processes. Then there's Jane's strange past, mysterious even to Jane herself, and her deep-seated (but never obtrusive or preachy) Christian faith.

Jane is hired by Katie, a vampire and madam, to hunt down a rogue vampire who has been killing others of its own kind. In the course of her investigation, Jane discovers that this rogue may be something stranger even than an ordinary vampire. She also learns a few tantalizing hints about the origin of vampires. It seems that Hunter's vamps may date back to the mystery cults of Rome (and I can't wait to find out more of this backstory).

The plot of _Skinwalker_ is fast-paced and adrenaline-filled. It moved a little slowly for me in the beginning, in part because of the complexities of vampire politics, and in part because I'm not familiar enough with either guns or motorcycles to fully appreciate Jane's high-tech, lavishly-described gear. But as the climax approached, the action was nonstop and had me on the edge of my proverbial seat. Plus, I've got a soft spot for novels set in New Orleans. Hunter's New Orleans is extremely vivid, from the beignets to the flood damage.

Readers who are tired of the more "romancey" urban fantasies may find something to like here. Jane becomes attracted to a few people, but romance is definitely on the back burner in _Skinwalker_.

Overall, this is an exciting, unusual urban fantasy, and I recommend it to readers looking for a butt-kicking heroine who's a little different from the norm.

I have been waiting to read Skinwalker for some time. It comes very highly recommended. Unfortunately, it didn't blow me away. I feel like Jane is pretty normal for a heroine. She doesn't have much that sets her apart from any other urban fantasy female lead, and that earned Skinwalker some big negative points. The American Indian theme has been used before, and it is not any more interesting in this book than it has been in others. The shapeshifter character is also not unique. Just because a novel is not unique doesn't mean it cannot be entertaining. Skinwalker had just barely enough to keep me entertained. The mystery is decent, but there are not enough developments for it to be intriguing. The characters are there performing tasks, they aren't unlikable, but I don't get a feel for their personalities. The vampires are pretty standard, the setting is pretty standard, and everything is just ok. If there was a little more personality to the characters, a little more surprise to the mystery, and a little more on the American Indian background this may have been a little more interesting. The way it stands now I feel no need to continue reading the series.

Skinwalker is a great novel that deserves to be devoured by the true-blue fantasy reader. Urban fantasy heroines today are a dime-a-dozen and frankly most of them aren't really interesting. Too many authors who think angst-driven or sex-driven narratives can take the place of good story-telling. Popcorn fantasy might have its place, but it just can't substitute for well-crafted and balanced story-telling.

Jane Yellowrock is a 6' tall Cherokee skinwalker, vampire hunter and biker gal. You are almost tempted to say "Hyped and Sterotyped fantasy heroine". (unlike, for example, Hunter's Thorn St Croix, who is rather original). Yet, Jane is strangely appealing - no angst, very straightforward, possessing a pragmatic kindness and a focused work-ethic.

Jane has taken a contract to hunt down a rogue vamp in New Orleans and that comes first before playing around. (Story Before Sex). She doesn't know much about herself and as far as she is aware, she is unique in the supernatural world. She can take the form of any animal but prefers to track rogues as a 'mountain panther' at night. And when she is in the form of a panther, she thinks and behaves as 'Beast'. And no, this *isn't* run-of-the-mill werebeast behaviour that has been done to death - this 'Beast' is really unique!

Jane investigates New Orleans vampire clans and the city itself while managing to deflect the interest that both vampire and cops show for her. Over the course of this story, she realizes her opponent isn't just a vampire rogue, discovers glimpses of her lost childhood memories and what her 'Beast' truly is.

A terrific story..and you'll also come to love 'Beast'.