The best Yellowrock book in a long while, this is enough to bring me firmly back in the series' corner. ( )

Shapeshifting skinwalker Jane Yellowrock is the best in the business when it comes to slaying vampires, but her latest fanged foe may be above her pay grade. One of the strongest vampire witches of the European Council is set to create some havoc in the city of New Orleans, and it’s definitely personal. Jane is tasked with tracking him down. She and her partners will have to put everything on the line and hope it’s enough. Okay, I have to admit that this series is a guilty pleasure. It’s shallow and violent and snarky. It’s overblown and wild. I LOVE it. Just..just.. I’ll be over here.. ( )

Now that we’re on book nine in the series, the world building has gotten super twisty and complex. In the last book, we learned that Jane has the ability to bend time using her beast form, which causes all sorts of interesting complications and side effects for her and those around her. I’ll admit there was a place or two I had to go back and reread to get everything in. A terrible vampire has escaped from Leo’s clutches and a mass murder has occurred. The human world is in an uproar. Leo is being Leo. Jane is assigned to bring them in. Except there are a few complications from previous books like that pesky blood diamond and the witches that are making things a bit hairier. Interesting world building as always!

Please excuse typos/name misspellings. Entered on screen reader. ( )

Good fun not as fluff as it started. ( )

Back in Book 1, "Skinwalker" when Jane Yellowrock rolled into New Orleans on Bitsa, her restored Harley, with a Benelli M4 Super 90 over her shoulder, loaded for vamp with silver flechette rounds and silver-tipped stakes strapped to her jean-clad thighs, she was an independent vamp-killer for hire with a "Have Stakes, Will Travel" business card, a kick-ass attitude and no sympathy at all for Fang Heads.

She was feisty and prickly and had a secret that she was trying to protect but she was, mostly, human. She stood up to the vamps who ruled the city, taking their money for cutting off the heads of rogue vamps while declining to pay them any respect at all. I found that I liked her and I wanted her to win.

When I met Beast, the Puma who reluctantly shares Jane's head, I fell in love with her directness and her sense of humour.

Together, the two of them were fresh and compelling and I was hungry for more. So hungry that I consumed the next five books and then picked up the rest as they were released.

This year, I read book 9, "Dark Heir" and realized how much things had changed.

Firstly, the good things. Faith Hunter's writing has grown more confident and accomplished with each book. She has a gift for writing credible and exciting action sequences and for making the supernatural tangible. The ensemble cast in the Yellowrock books has grown in size and depth so that the focus is no longer only on Jane. The , to me annnoying, will-she-won't-she Team Rick vs Team Bruiser seems to have been resolved.

Now the less good things. Jane has gradually moved from Vamp Killer For Hire, to someone who spends her time protecting vamps and is almost a part of the vamp establishment. This makes her much harder to like. The increasingly complex vampire political intrigues eat of larger and larger portions of the text, while Beast seems to have receded to the background. Jane is much less human than she was. She is a fierce predator, gifted at fighting and killing but with less and less time for anything else.

These may sound like criticisms, but they are more like regrets. All these changes make sense. They are the result of a healthy evolution of the storyline and the characters. The current Jane Yellowrock still holds my attention as much as ever, I just don't like her as much.

"Dark Heir" is well written, does a lot to move Jane's personal development along and sets the stage for interesting times ahead.

Book 10, "Shadow Rites" comes out in the spring. I'm looking forward to reading it. I'm hoping to see more of Beast and less of the back-biting vamps but I'd settle for just more of Beast.

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