Hunted By The Others by Jess Haines - review

Hunted By The Others
Jess Haines
urban fantasy
2010/mmpb
***** (5 out of 6)
cover - the picture of the cover doesn't look quite as good as the cover in real life - even so, I don't like the look on the woman's face (that's so shallow of me, but it's true).  However, in a dramatic way, I do like the coat, the way it flares, the two guns, her belt and her outfit.  jealous because I don't have clothes like that and wouldn't quite so good in them....I would look more ....short....and rounder, with way bigger chichis and hip....(and a little bigger stomach, awww....whatever, I'm REAL).  I like the cver, even though it's kind of campy - dramatic and campy.  Oh yeah.


Here's the thing.  I very much enjoyed reading Hunted By The Others.  However, even so - I don't know if I want to continue reading the series; to be truthful, I don't know if it's because I have this core group of authors that I absolutely love...and while I enjoyed this, it wasn't 6 of 6 like the books I can't wait to read...That's not really fair for this one.


The basis of this novel, is Shiarra Waynest - a regular human being, is being dragged against her will into the midst of vampire vs coven vs were politics.  Shiarra has a business that is losing money, so she ends up taking a job she really doens't want to take.  She's almost threatened into taking it, really.  This mage wants her to find a focus - one that a vampire - a very powerful one - has.  Unfortunately, this vampire also wants something out of her - and not only that, but this White Hat Society is trying to intimidate her into joining them in their fight against vampires and weres.  She ends up in all kinds of danger, her business partner and her end up having to go into hiding and STILL manage to end up in trouble.  Then Shiarra ends up reluctantly accepting help from unlikely sources and there's this wicked fight scene towards the end.


Now the story starts out great.  I think a lot of authors are making sure that their first chapters are stellar, so keep readers interested.  Then by the second chapter there were quite a few pages of background information.  Information about were, vampires and witches and they way everyone came out of the closets, how laws and civil rights were affected, etc.  There's an explanation on why Shiarra broke up with her boyfriend - a were - and then a few chapters later, there's ANOTHER  session of Shiarra and her boyfriend breaking up...I was ready to figure oh well, author thought it was necessary here, but then later again in the book it's brought up AGAIN.  It doens't need to be explained more than one time.  really.  I get it.  Most readers would get it.


If I forget these explanations, the rest of the book was pretty interesting - the narration was first person and flowed along.  The dialogue between characters was natural.  There was only one instant where I thought - ooh, overly dramatic dialogue here, and that's when she's dealing with a vampire almost attacking her.


Seemingly at random - with no real reasons that I could see, everyone is mistaking Shiarra for a lesbian.  For some reason, a female mage vaguely hits on her, then later when she's crying in a cab, the cabby tells her "she's not worth it".  Something must have been edited out, because there wasn't anything supporting his assumption.  Later on in the book, someone else makes an inference that she's gay.  I didn't the reason for it.  If you want to have gay characters in your book, write some in, don't just make everyone make the mistaken assumption....unless maybe it's setting her up for coming out of the closet later in the series?  It just seemed random to me.


Bottom line - found  myself totally enjoying the action, and the storyline...but I also found myself beginning to skim over some parts; the parts that felt a bit repetitive, because despite spending quite a few pages setting up the background of this world, there were instances throughout the book when certain parts were brought up again, and it felt a little repetitive.  So though I ended up skimming small sections - the story itself was interesting the action was fun and that last fight was pretty kickass, if a little stomach churning.  Not graphic, but when you think about what's happening....oh boy.  


This is the first in a series of three, going on four books.  Stalking The Others - #4 - comes out in August 2012.