Early Review – Shadow Rites (Jane Yellowrock, Book 10) by Faith Hunter (4/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: 368 pages
Publisher: Roc
Release Date: April 5th, 2016
ISBN-13: 978-0451465979
Stand Alone or Series: 10th book in the Jane Yellowrock series
Source: eGalley through NetGalley.com
Rating: 4/5 stars
“Jane is keeping the peace between visiting groups of witches and vamps in the city, but then trouble comes knocking on her doorstep. When her house is magically attacked, the wild chase to find her assailants unearths a mystery that has literally been buried deep.
A missing master vampire, presumed long deceased, is found chained in a pit…undead, raving mad, and in the company of two human bodies. Now it’s up to Jane to find out who kept the vampire hidden for so long and why, because the incident could tip already high supernatural tensions to an all-out arcane war.”
This was a well done continuation of the Jane Yellowrock series. I enjoyed most of the book, although at times all the strange different magical energies Jane is dealing is getting to be a bit too much (just confusing and nothing ever seems to be resolved…just added to).
This book is mainly about the witches and vampires in New Orleans coming to some sort of accord. It was a good read, but also a bit long at times. I think the pacing was a bit off and the story covered a very short time frame which made it feel even longer.
Jane has come a long way in this series; she has a family of sorts now and has learned to accept assistance when she needs to. Her and Bruiser continue to have a stable relationship as well. I am curious to see how all her magical issues will change her over the next couple books. Eli and the Kid are an integral part of the story as well and I really continue to enjoy them.
Things are getting a bit too magically ambiguous in this series, some of the things are getting a bit hard to follow and you have to read very carefully to keep it all straight. Jane is now dealing with black energies, red energies, green energies, and blue energies in her soul home and I hope some of this is resolved soon. Even with that complaint I do continue to enjoy these books, just not as much as earlier books in this series.
Overall a good book in the Jane Yellowrock series. I continue to enjoy the characters a lot and enjoyed the progress made between the vampire/witch interactions. I thought parts of the story were a bit slow and also felt like all the magical energy stuff is getting a bit over-complicated and hard to follow. I would definitely recommend this series to fans of action-packed urban fantasy; this is a solid series that is flagging a bit but has remained consistently good throughout.
This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
– New Release Challenge
– Flights of Fantasy Reading Challenge