Jane Yellowrock is still reeling from the bond that Leo
forced on her, depressed, lost and apathetic and afraid even to shift for fear
that Beast would go running to Leo, she needs a distraction. So a call to
Natchez to kill Naturaleza vampires sounds like the best thing.
There’s some politics to play what with Leo and the
master of Natchez being officially annoyed with each other and lots of dancing
from that, but Jane handles it with her normal blunt force approach.
Except these vampires are worse than your usual
Naturaleza. They’re faster, tougher – and nearly immune to silver. And they’re
changing into something else, something insectile. This is an entirely new
threat and one more lethal and disturbing than most she has faced – something
that goes back to the very core of the vampires’ creation.
That and the increasing body count – over 100 missing and dead humans – means having to call in the government agency, PsyLed, which means calling in Ricky which means, along with Bruiser, Leo’s second showing up, Jane also has to deal with her rocky emotions over her personal life.
This is one of those hard reviews to right because so
much is done well that it creates an excellent book. But the things that were
more shaky are things I can write much more about
Which means I end up reducing the excellently well
written plot, with all the descriptions giving me just enough information to
see the scene vividly without it being bogged down, the well paced fight scenes
full of drama and excitement, the emotional quandaries that carry all of the
feeling with none of the excessive angst – to a single sentence of “it was well
paced”. Followed by several paragraphs of what I think the book did wrong
giving the end impression of my not liking the book, which couldn’t’ be further
from the truth.
The book is really well written. Everything is largely
balanced well. Jane has personal, emotional conflicts, her depression over the
actions in the last book are really well conveyed through her apathy and
tiredness far more so than by her sitting in a corner and wailing. Her
relationship with Eli and the Kid is shown really well, again without lots of
excessive telling, just the way they bounce off each other shows this
developing family.
Jane herself is a complicated character, her balancing of her spirituality and morality with her complex belief system, history and profession is deep and interesting. Even as she hardens after the events of the last few books, she still holds onto her morality and the guilt that clings to her. I love the Her interactions with Beast are excellent and I love that Beast is more than just a raging hungry monster – Beast is maternal, Beast wants kits, Beast can be guaranteed to shred anyone and anything in defence of children.
