Review: Interesting premise, but not interested in reading more.
Facade: Usually a woman on the cover is a positive indicator for me. However, the image of the her straddling a motorcycle with boobs pushed up seemed sexualized. She is also hoisting a shotgun aggressively, which combined with the dark colors of black and gold, was a deterrent because it seemed to highlight masculinity and violence.
Appetizer: "I wheeled my bike down Decatur Street and eased deeper into the French Quarter, the bike's engine purring."
I gave a little internal squee when I read the first lines because I love New Orleans, home of my family, and I wanted to see what Faith Hunter would do with it. So that is really all the first sentence does, is set the location. Because it is in first person the reader does not know for sure if the narrator is a man or woman but one assumes woman because of the cover. Regardless of gender, a person on a motorcycle does bring to mind certain images which is a good way to create visual with minimal words. That being said, I was a bit disappointed with the use of the phrase "engine purring" because the bikes I've been around have never purred.
Tossed Salad: I did not finish the story with any memorable characters.
Main Meat Course: Jane Yellowrock is a kickass, motorcycle riding, gun toting woman. But... the flavors didn't mesh for me and here is why.
The concept of the "Beast" was cool, but dialogue between Jane and Beat was inconsistent. The story started out slow and with a lot of 'telling.' Why explain about recuperating from an almost beheading if it is going to be brought up in conversation later. There is this problem with redundancy and repetition again. At times the story read like a history book with the 'telling' and not enough showing. This is a story and it seemed the author forgot that she was supposed to be sharing a world with the readers.
Although I love learning new and interesting things while reading, I felt a bit overwhelmed by the plethora of details about mechanics and guns and fighting. Many of the fight scenes were reading like a script from an action movie.
The most difficult part for me was that the rules of the world were not clearly explained, such as the rules for using "mass" to change forms and why. And how did Jane discover that she can only change at sundown and sunup? I have stated before that establishing rules in the paranormal world is very important and it is clear that Hunter has done this. However, if those rules are different from conventional "Hollywood" rules, then they need to be clearly explained to the reader and this is where Hunter's story lacks cohesion.
Ultimately, the story is interesting and I can see why many people like it. But for me to keep reading the crafting needs to be better.
Dessert: It was immediately evident that the story of Jane Yellowrock has lots of plot lines open for future stories. So if you enjoyed the first book, there is definitely more out there for the reader.
Word Count: 537
Edits: 2
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