Hunter's Prayer
Hunter's Prayer ****** Lilith SaintCrow (2008) This book has taken me so long to read. Not because I didn't enjoy it, because I enjoyed it a lot. Hunter's Prayer is one of the books I was reading when I moved last year, so it went through a move, was packed up, found, lost, found again, dissappeared for a while, re-appeared, and then - because I was then in the middle of another great book, I put it in the shelf so I wouldn't lose it again but....kind of forgot that I meant to read it because I kept gettin involved in other books. I finally realized that Lilith Saintcrow had published TWO OTHER books in this series, so I better get crackin' on this one. I finally finished it, by reading a little bit each night, taking it to work and reading small passages of it while my group of children were reading their books. Believe me, it's hard to concentrate on a book while you're also keeping one eye on the students and helping others with the occassional word pronuncation (hoping I'm pronouncing words right - as I was growing up, my mom was learning english and she had taught us the spanish vowels and consonant pronunciation, so to this day, I still tend to think of words with a spanish flavor to them, even though I'm basically illiterate in spanish. Hunter's Prayer is the second in the Jill Kismet series. (first is Night Shift). Jill Kismet is a Hunter - someone with mad fighting skills who protects her territory (the city Santa Luz) from predators of the supernatural and hellish variety. She has major issues from her past, but that's one of the reasons she became a hunter. Only this time she's in for more than she knows. Hooker are disappearing and bodies are found with all of their organs missing. What's happening is more than Jill Kismet is expecting. Kismet's character is one of those tense, kind of angry characters, although she's not like that all the time (like certain other book's characters - ahem!) Kismet knows when to be pleasant to co-workers and to her love interest, it's nice not to have a completely angry character who is always mad at everyone. I always enjoy Lilith Saintcrow's books. Her characters aren't special wonderfully nice people with supernatural talents, and they aren't always indiscriminitely irritible and abusive to all their acquaintances either. In this series Jill Kismet has strengths and weaknesses that she's well aware of. She isn't perfect, but she tries her best to take care of the city that she feels responsible for. The side character's are interesting. The Hellbreed Perry, whom Kismet has a bargain with, has something up his sleeve of course (he's a hell breed!) and wants something from Jill Kismet that he hasn't let known yet. Her partner, Saul is a were. The weres usually stick to their own, but he's drawn to Kismet against his nature but goes with it. The next book in the series is Redemption Alley, which I plan to try to read in the next two weeks. This book falls under the 2010 Countdown Challenge for 2008.