Skinwalker

Jane Yellowrock, Book 1

By: Faith Hunter

Narrated by: Khristine Hvam

Length: 14 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

Jane Yellowrock is the last of her kind - a skinwalker of Cherokee descent who can turn into any creature she desires and hunts vampires for a living. But now she's been hired by Katherine Fontaneau, one of the oldest vampires in New Orleans and the madam of Katie's Ladies, to hunt a powerful rogue vampire who's killing other vamps.

©2009 Faith Hunter (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

• Audie Award Nominee - Judges' Award for Best Paranormal Audiobook, 2011

"A new, strongly unique voice in the dark fantasy genre." (Kim Harrison)

"Hunter's very professionally executed, tasty blend of dark fantasy, mystery, and romance should please fans of all three genres." ( Booklist)

"Khristine Hvam portrays Jane with an adventurous-sounding voice edged with a twang.... Hvam’s voices for the Louisiana locals whom Jane learns to love and respect.... augment an intriguing story with hints of Native American mysticism." ( AudioFile)

I felt like it could be better

This was a good start but not my cup of tea. I found the characters to be annoying. The plot was ok, I felt like it could be better.

southern accent was rough

Great story, but the narrator's southern accent made it brutal to get into. It takes a while to get going anyway, and having the accent as inconsistent and annoying as it is makes it tougher to get through at first. I actually loved the story, but I'm disappointed since I'll have to read the rest instead of listening, if the narrator doesn't change.

Entertaining and unique.

What did you love best about Skinwalker?

Unique character. Two hundred years as a huge mountain lion turned Cherokee woman with serious fighting skills. She blends animal and human traits seamlessly.

What other book might you compare Skinwalker to and why?

There are none exactly like this. New twist.

Any additional comments?

Good tight plot. A few twists. Interesting and developed characters. Jane lives and walks in a dangerous world and handles it with aplomb and skill. I found myself intrigued. Good new series. I will listen to more.

Fun Use of Cherokee Lore

The first time I’d ever heard of skinwalkers was in True Blood. Since then I’ve heard about them a few more times, but with more depth in this story. The element of mystery surrounding them definitely adds intrigue to the story, and will clearly be a subplot throughout the series.
The integration of vampires and witches into normal society is similar to that of Kim Harrison’s The Hallows series, though with a few distinct differences. The intermingling of laws in particular is something I enjoyed.
Khristine Hvam is one of the top women narrators. She is a skilled storyteller, commands several voices, and has a lovely narrative voice. That said, it is clear that this is one of her earlier books, before she worked with a proofed in particular. Unless she was intentionally infusing regional dialect, there are a few words that she mispronounced. Flechettes, for example, was pronounced as FLAY-shets, with a slight pause between syllables, when it should be pronounced as fleh-SHETS, no pause. Sure, sure, it may seem like a petty comment, but as I mentioned it is either a mistake or regional dialect, though if it was the latter it was unclear. I mention this only to show that she has shown improvement from what was already an excellent start to her career.

Good start

Interesting start to the series. The narrator is pretty good. Misses character changes sometimes but not enough to be annoying. This book has no overt sexual content so I would have no reason to not let my teen daughter read it if she wished too.

good but flawed

The story was ok and the characters were interesting but parts of the book were painful.
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Parts of the book are written from the perspective of an animal. I understand that they are written to show how the thoughts of the creature are different from human but they are annoying.
It feels like they were written by an eight year old that is using a second language that they are just learning.
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I am glad I was listening to this book and not reading it.
I would recommend listening to those sections at double speed.

Not bad

but not a fave, yet. Id like to check out at least one more but it didnt get my interest like many creature feature books do.

Under the Skin of story.

I particularly enjoyed this book because of Khristine Hvam's character voices adding life & personality to the story. The story itself is strong & kept me engaged in trying to unravel what was really going on in New Orleans.tjis was very satisfying.

Worth a shot

Most of the Audible titles I've listened to Re books I've already read. Old friends. This one was new to me, and very good. Good structure, good story, and it looks like it will be a great series.

Action Pacted

Loved it looking forward to books 2 though 17 if there anything like book one (1) will bring me many hours of enjoyed listing.