Raven Cursed: Jane Yellowrock, Book 4

I enjoyed the wonderful depth of detail in all aspects of the storyline while generating enough additional questions to make you want more

I continue to enjoy the Jane Yellowrock series. It isn't perfect but it is a very enjoyable read and Jane is a really intriguing character with lots of depth that slowly comes out over time. We continue to learn more about her in this book and continue filling in the fuzzy picture of her life history when she was younger.What I don't quite get in the stories so far is why Leo Pellissier (Blood Master of the City) keeps hiring her but continues to withhold critical information from her. He does seem to want her to succeed but yet on numerous occasions (certainly in Mercy Blade as well as here) he doesn't provide her critical background information. Lack of this information almost got her killed in Mercy Blade and definitely hampered her here as well and while it was perhaps needed to make the story work, thats a bit of a weakness in building a strong plot.The interesting thing in this story is that it is set in Asheville instead of New Orleans. And much of the plot revolves around issues with Molly's family - the continuation of the plot hinted at in the previous book with Evangelina who, you may recall, while staying with Jane in New Orleans, seemed to be spelling her and George ("Bruiser"). Jane is in Asheville to set up and provide security for a vampire discussion taking place in Asheville with the head of Vamps in the Appalachian Mountains and provide bodyguard services (which she has no background in). Apparently the local vamp head has some way of getting new vampires out of the crazy (devoveo) phase in only 2 years and that information is important enough that Leo is willing to have a discussion with him about elevating him to a local MOC.The security detail is greatly complicated by Evangalina's relationship to the Vampires and some loose werewolves that are going around killing campers. Leo wants the vampires stopped because people are kind of blaming the vampires for the killings so Jane is off chasing them too and not just doing the local security. A big chunk of the story revolves around Evangalina and why she is double-crossing the vampires and doing some really bad stuff. Jane has to get to the bottom of it, without pissing off her best friend Molly.The weird stuff going on in Molly's family is due to Evangalina. Molly and the family don't want to believe it. Big Evan doesn't want Jane anywhere around his family because he blames her for much of what is happened to his family recently in New Orleans (interestingly enough, he thaws a little bit towards the end based on what happens in the story.) Without giving away too much, Evangalina has gone off the deep end in a quest for revenge, stole the blood diamond from Jane's room in New Orleans, and is working some very evil magic. Jane & Molly's family have to stop it. In the process, Molly's children get involved - Angie shows more of her powers and even little Evan joins a circle when they try to take care of a demon. Jane finds out that she and Angie have guardian angels and Angie can speak with them and the angels have to get engaged in what is happening. [the Christianity sub-plot with Jane is something I still find odd but it is interesting how that gets contrasted with her Cherokee heritage. It isn't so distracting as to be a problem.] Some very interesting things happen between Jane and her beast as part of what goes on here.There's a whole subplot on Rick who is also in Asheville under the watchful glare of Kemnebi (the Black Panther) who is now beta to Jane and is mostly drunk and pissed off (and who wants Rick to die for what happened to his mate). But without Kem Jane thinks Rick will die when he weres the first time yet she also knows Kem will challenge him at that point. Pretty weird actually with a couple of interesting plot twists. The relationship between Jane and Rick sort of evolves, but there's actually enough material there to have an entire book so we get just bits and pieces. It all ties in to the Grindylow who is also in the area but behaving very strangely - not going after the rogue werewolves like it should.Jane makes a friend among the local vampires - the two of them are an odd pair. It will be interesting to see if and how that plays into future stories.All in all there were a lot of different things going on and they way they were tied together seemed vaguely contrived at times. I think it was good though to get her out of New Orleans for a book and get a bit more on Molly and her family.All in all a good read. I'm only going to give it 4 stars though for having too much in it and not being able to flesh some of the things out as well as they should have been (e.g. Rick)

This is the 4th book in the Jane Yellowrock series by Hunter. The fifth book,  Death's Rival: A Jane Yellowrock Novel , 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!

I have now read the first 4 books in two days - and am about to start the 5th. It’s rare for a series to get better and better, but Jane Yellowrock’s story is compelling, fast-paced and full of twists and turns. She has the complexity of so many good heroines, Cat Crawfield, Mercedes Thompson, Kate Daniels, Anna Cornick to name but a few. And Beast is a genuine delight and a fresh perspective and voice on a soul companion. Cannot wait to see where the series will go next!

I love this seriesThis book twists and turns and had me going through so many emotions.I won’t spoil it but I was happy, sad to point of crying, and I just love angie babe and little Evan so cute ,and also sitting on the edge of your seat .I adored this book , thank you to the author for taking such amazing storylines.Cant wait for the next book .... xx

Jane Yellowrock has been a great series, violent, intriguing and even a little sexy but not enough to shock the prude called Susan on another book's review. It'll be good to see how the twist of her 'skinwalker' identity becoming common knowledge will shape and twist future books. I woud recommend this for fantasty readers and anyone who just likes good ol' fashioned s+×÷ kicking violence in a book where no real people are taking ANY injuries!

I've enjoyed this series more with each book. I wasn't entirely sure about it for the first couple of books, I found her quite hard to like and some of her angst around the choices she'd made didn't really ring true given that she didn't walk away from what she was doing. However, with each book she seems to have become warmer and more human. Definitely a series worth reading for anyone who likes a genuinely strong female lead.

I struggle to find good reads in this genre, there's a lot of cliched, predictable moralising rubbish out there unfortunately, this one however shows a good level of originality, is well written and even better the main character doesn't suddenly jump out of character to leap into bed with the first hot male that comes along. The plot twists and turns keep things interesting and the characters are well created, definitely worth a read.