Preternatura Books Club: The Vampire World of Skinwalker by Faith Hunter

Welcome back to the Preternatura Book Club! We'll be talking about topics that are related to the book we're reading but are general enough for you to pipe up and voice an opinion.

First, a quick commercial message. The Susannah Sandlin book tour for ABSOLUTION (out October 9) continues today. Check the website for the link to today's tour stop. Up for grabs: A Kindle Paper White (or $100 gift card) and signed books, plus a couple of $25 gift cards for commenting on the individual tour stops...so check it out! Plus, book one in the series, REDEMPTION, is only $1.99 for Kindle this month.

Back to the book club....Each book read will last four weeks, which is a much faster schedule than we've done on previous books. Today, we tackle the next few chapters of SKINWALKER, book one in the Jane Yellowrock series by Faith Hunter.

Today’s giveaway will be a mystery unclaimed prize of your choice of genre: paranormal romance, urban fantasy, sci fi, fantasy, or YA.

Okay, I’ve really gotten hooked into this story now, to the point where I’ve been grumbling because I had to put it down to read the book I’m supposed to be reviewing. Zombie cowboys just can’t stack up.

Leo continues to be fascinating to me. I haven’t gotten a clear idea of exactly how the vampires work in this world, but Jane seems immune to enthrallment. And yet not entirely—Leo’s sharing blood with her opened up some of her memories of what she is and that her father and grandmother also were skinwalkers. That was an intense scene. What do you think about the vampires of this world?

My question is, and I’m not far along enough to answer it, is what has Leo gotten out of this encounter? What is Jane going to owe him?

Back to vampire worldbuilding. So, apparently beheading is a useful vampire-killing technique. Having been around a lot of those uptown mansions with koi fountains, only a spitting distance from very impoverished and dangerous neighborhoods, I had to laugh at the image of Jane dipping the dead vampire girl’s head in the fountain to try and rinse her blood scent from it.

I’ve griped about New Orleans stuff that wasn’t quite right, so I need to give props for an observation Jane makes that’s so very true—one can literally travel one or two blocks and go from a very wealthy residential street to a very poor one, and two more blocks into another wealthy one. It’s why so many guidebooks tell tourists to stay on the main thoroughfares. You can make one wrong turn and be somewhere you don’t want to be. Most cities have safe neighborhoods and not-so-safe ones; New Orleans has safe blocks and not-so-safe ones. It’s all a jumble.

Let’s see, what else struck me this week. BEAST! I love that Beast has a comment on things Jane sees so they have this inner dialogue.

I still don’t have a good handle on Jane herself. She’s all tough girl, but shows occasional flashes of fear (with good reason), so I haven’t quite figured out her M.O. yet. And she’s kind of macho yet also does the girly dance clothes. Which all probably means she’s a pretty complex character, and that’s a good thing.

Share your thoughts on SKINWALKER to enter for the book drawing! Next week, we’ll continue with the next few chapters. I’m not reading as fast on this one as I’d hoped but I still hope to get through it by mid-October to keep the book club on schedule. The reading schedule for the book club can now be found on the righthand column of the blog page.