Blood Rock

Skindancer, Book 2

By: Anthony Francis

Narrated by: Traci Odom

Length: 15 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

Book Two in the Skindancer series.

Dakota Frost is back, and the ink is about to hit the fan-again.

Graffiti comes to life in the dark heart of Atlanta's oldest cemetery, slaying one of the city's best-loved vampires before the eyes of his friend Dakota Frost. Deadly magick is at work on the city's walls, challenging even the amazing power of Dakota's tattoos to contain it. The hungry, graffiti magick loves to kill, and the Edgeworld is no longer safe from its own kind.

Dakota begins a harrowing journey to save those she loves and to discover the truth behind the spreading graffiti - even if that truth offends the vampires, alienates the werekin and creates police suspicion of her every action.

Saving Atlanta may cost her everything, including custody of her "adopted" weretiger daughter, Cinnamon. But failure is not an option. If the graffiti isn't stopped, Cinnamon could be the next victim.

Epic Award-winner Anthony Francis writes the Skindancer series while working fulltime for "that famous search engine whose name begins with a 'G'." Visit him at http://dakotafrost.com.

©2001 Anthony Francis (P)2012 BelleBooks, Inc.

For a heroin she seems to get captured a lot.

While she is cool and powerful, she seems to get caught off guard and kidnapped a lot

Uneven but fun 2nd volume in Skindancer series

In this 2nd book of Anthony Francis's Skindancer series, we find Dakota Frost (skin dancer/tattoo artist) combatting magical graffiti in Atlanta. We are re-introduced to the wonderful world of vampires, were kin and wizards. Wonderful premise and setting. Unfortunately, the writing is still uneven (as in the debut novel, "Frost Moon.") I never really felt engaged to any of the characters (but, I am becoming fond of Cinnamon, Dakota's adopted were kin daughter, even though her speech sometimes reminds me of a fowl-mouthed Jar Jar Binks.)

The book drags a bit and got too informative on graffiti and tattoos. The action scenes are good, though. This is a good read if you are looking for some escapism.

Again, Traci Odom, the narrator, delivers with distinct characterizations.

Waiting for no 3

Would you listen to Blood Rock again? Why?

Looked for the next installment, not out yet unfortunately. Characters are believable and intriguing and evolving. Great universe.

What other book might you compare Blood Rock to and why?

Jane Yellowrock series. Also strong multidimentional heroine and great universe.

Which character – as performed by Traci Odom – was your favorite?

Can't say.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Many of the scenes between Dakota Frost and her adopted daughter are interesting.

Any additional comments?

Looking forward to the next installment, hopefully with the same narrator who is doing a great job!

i love these books

If you could sum up Blood Rock in three words, what would they be?

great 2nd book in the set! great pick up from the 1st book!

What was one of the most memorable moments of Blood Rock?

I love the growth of the story a

What about Traci Odom’s performance did you like?

she was good

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

its to long for that

Any additional comments?

this is a great author cant wait for more! i would love a 3rd book with frost and freinds

Not as good as the first book in this series....

This is the second book in the Dakota Frost series by Francis. It was an okay book, but there are definitely some flaws throughout the story. The third book in the series, Liquid Fire, was just released in May 2015.

I listened to this on audiobook and the narrator does a decent job. She does a good job with emotion and does okay with unique character voices. However there are a couple of male characters that sound very similar and are hard to distinguish between.

In this book Dakota is trying to track down the person making magical graffiti around the city. The magical graffiti is killing people (primarily vamps) and it looks like the whole city is pushing towards a larger disaster if the graffiti can't be stopped.

I didn't enjoy this book as much as the first book in the Dakota Frost series. This is an urban fantasy series about a magical tattoo artist named Dakota Frost who is also a skindancer (meaning she can make her tattoos come alive and attack/defend by dancing).

I do enjoy the concept behind these novels. However I felt like the plot was just kind of all over the place. On top of that one disastrous thing after another happens to Dakota to the point where you are just like "Oh my God, enough already!" I felt like Dakota's reactions to all these huge awful events was just so hollow.

Additionally there are a number of times in the story where Dakota makes mental leaps or deduces things that just don't make sense with the rest of the story. As a reader you are left thinking "Huh?"

Lastly there are a few times where Dakota is in a situation where she could use her magic but doesn't; these scenes don't make sense and seem to mainly just be there to push the plot in the right direction. At times I was almost screaming “Just use your stupid vines and block them already!”

The world is pretty typical urban fantasy fare (werekin, vampires, magic, and a heroine who runs herself ragged). However I was disappointed in the some of the plot points. Especially the whole thing with Calaphase.

I do continue to enjoy the characters. I love the idea of skindancing and how that magic works; that part of the story is very unique and creative. I loved how much Dakota’s foster child, Cinnamon, was in the story and really enjoyed watching Cinnamon change and grow throughout the story.

Overall this was an okay book, but pretty mediocre considering all of the other urban fantasy options out there. I continue to really love the creative tattoo magic and skindancing and loved that we learned more about that in this book. However at times the story is flawed and I thought that Dakota’s reaction to all the disaster happening around her was kind of blah.

The world here is pretty typical urban fantasy fare. I guess I would recommend checking this series out if you are a huge urban fantasy fan and have read through most of the other urban fantasy out there. I have Liquid Fire for review but am debating as to whether or not I will actually read it.

Better than the first book !

Overall I thought this book was absolutely excellent. I really enjoyed the narrators inflection and what she brings to the book. She brings it alive and makes you able to see what is actually happening with characters. There was a little more of the background magical detail in this book, and it times, it's slow down the story somewhat. I also noted that it times, the story was a bit convoluted. However, that aside, it was a very enjoyable listen.
This is not a book that has a lot of serious political thought although it does include some political comment and inference. It's a great book to listen to while you're doing other things including driving or housework. And I do recommend it. I'm also going to be looking for other books read
by the narrator.

Another great one from Anthony!

More than just an expansion beyond tattoos, this book brings in a bunch of new characters and depth to the Edgeworld.

Can't wait for the next one!

Where does Blood Rock rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I listen to many books and this series drew me in and made me excited.

Sometimes overly complex

Great Characterd and premise but sometimes the magic and even the motive/ bad guy machinations are way too complex. If I wanted a science/math/logic lesson, I wouldn't be going to a fiction author. The whole reasoning behind the tags and how they worked was way too overwritten.

Magical graffiti

In this second book of the series Dakota tries to track down the person(s) doing the magical graffiti which is killing vampires, werekin and humans, plus creating fires. It dragged in quite a few places where it got too informative about magical graffiti and tattoos and I started to drift off since most of it was going right over my head anyway. She's also in the middle of trying to adopt Cinnamon (a werekin tiger) and has a lot of setbacks, i.e., getting arrested and several other situations. There's a lot of violence and deaths. Depending on what the next book is about in this series this will probably be the last one I listen to. Too many of the characters you get caught up in get killed off.