Blood Trade by Faith Hunter

Blood Trade by Faith Hunter is the sixth book in her popular Jane Yellowrock urban fantasy series. The series follows Jane Yellowrock, a Cherokee skinwalker who makes a living as a vampire hunter and security specialist. At the start of the series she comes to New Orleans to work for a senior vampire figure to hunt a declared rogue and she basically makes her home there in the following books.

I found the setting to be much like early Anita Blake, and the characters do share a lot in common. Both are mysterious powerful supernatural people, both have vampire hunting as an occupation, both have complicated love lives and both seem to spend their lives mired in vampire politics.

To discuss this novel I have to spoil the rest of this series, particularly given the previous novel (Death's Rival) was a major turning point in the story so far. Death's Rival featured the forced bonding of Jane with Leo and his heir while being held down by George Dumas. That's a massive betrayal by two thirds of her love interests right there, and the other third being PsyLED agent Rick LaFleur who Jane accused of trying to murder her at the end of the last book. Did I mention the complicated love life? The other main outcome of the previous book was Jane having shrugged off the bonding to Leo, only to have her Beast gladly take it on, and that she is now outed to most of the people she knows as a skinwalker.

So this book picks up a month or so after Death's Rival, and in classic Jane style she's busy avoiding her problems, this time by returning to Natchez to deal with the aftermath of the previous book (and to deal with some of the loose ends from there as well). This is an "unsanctioned" trip to the edge of Leo's territory. She's still bound to Leo, although it's not clear that Leo knows this as he appears to be giving her space.

While this book neatly wraps up the aftermath of the previous book in terms of plot, it's strictly treading water in terms of Jane and her life, and it's a bit of a let down considering the massive events of the previous book. But I guess it's very in-character for a protagonist who raises personal issue avoidance to an art form. But that's still frustrating as the central issue of the personal betrayal of her employers is just not dealt with at all.

Very much looking forward to the next one, where I hope we're going to start seeing some resolutions to some of these personal issues.

Currently Reading: Feed by M. T. Anderson to round out the rest of my Writer and the Critic podcast reading. Some Kind of Fairytale by Graham Joyce was quite brilliant and it's a very Writer and the Critic sort of book so it will be interesting to see how much they gush over it.