Review – Raven Crossed (Jane Yellowrock, Book 4) by Faith Hunter (4/5 stars)

Reading level: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Size: 384 pages
Publisher: Roc
Release Date: January 3, 2012
ISBN: 978-0451464330
Stand Alone or Series: 4th book in the Jane Yellowrock series
Source: Bought
Rating: 4/5 stars

This is the 4th book in the Jane Yellowrock series by Hunter. The fifth book, Death’s Rival, is due out later in 2012. I enjoyed this installment in the series, although there were a couple small points that I didn’t enjoy in the story. You definitely want to read previous books in the series before reading this one, although Hunter does a pretty good job of providing enough background to jog your memory.

The vampires of Asheville, North Carolina want to establish their own clan…as such they need to set up an agreement with Leo. Leo sends Gregoire as his ambassador to open negotiations and Jane is sent along to serve as Leo’s head of security. While there Jane stumbles across a rash of murders that look like they may be caused by werewolves. Things are already strained enough as it is and the random deaths are making things worse. Jane needs to figure out these death’s and there cause, but all of that may point back to Jane’s past. Imagine’s Jane surprised when she finds that witches might be wrapped up in the whole mess as well.

This book had a complex plot with a lot of things going on that at first didn’t seem to be all that connected. Jane was run ragged pretty much the whole book between her job as head of security for Leo and then her days running around trying to figure out the werewolf murders.

We get to meet some new interesting types of creatures; grindylow’s and demons enter into the story. Rick is back in the story a lot in this book; it was great to have him around but him and Jane definitely have some issues to work out.

I love Jane as a character: she is tough, self-sufficient, and takes action. She is not perfect though; she runs into periods of self doubt both with her religion and her past. I love that she finally gets to talk about her past with some of the other characters. I also loved some of the interesting stuff that happened between Jane and her Beast.

The one thing I didn’t love in this story was Jane’s multitude of suitors. Jane’s got her boyfriend Rick, then there’s Gregoire who Leo has chosen for Jane, and of course Bruiser. Add to the mix a couple of vamp twins who run security with Jane and there is a multitude of suitors here. Things never really got into late Anita Blake terroritory and I hope they don’t. But the story was getting uncomfortably close to that region. Especially with Beast constantly telling Jane that she should have many strong mates at once. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that things don’t get too crazy in the future; but I am nervous for Jane and her awesomeness up to this point.

This story wraps up very completely. It didn’t really start another story line for the next book. There are a couple small things that were left unresolved but for the most part it was a very complete story.

Overall I enjoyed this story. The plot gets very complex and at first it is tough to tell how everything is connected; but it ties together well in the end and wraps up very completely. We learn more about Jane’s past and Rick is in the story again which is nice. The number of suitors Jane has was a bit disturbing to me and I hope that this series isn’t going the way of Anita Blake. This was an excellent installment in this series and I hope that Death’s Rival is just as good or better!

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Horror and Urban Fantasy Challenge
– 150+ Books Reading Challenge