Dante Valentine Series, Lilith Saintcrow

As I've stated before, I love me some kick ass heroines.  Especially ones that carry swords.  AND do magic.  Because that is just the epitome of awesome.  Dante Valentine is a character I am still ambivalent about, especially as I got to know her through the five books in her series.

The first book, Working for the Devil, introduces Dante.  She's a necromancer bounty hunter with a death wish who ends up hunting a rogue demon for none other than Old Scratch himself.  Dante's world is a melting pot version of ours, except with a severely dysfunctional pot.  But, the reality of that doesn't really become clear until midway through the series.  Religion is now a mix of sorcery and witchcraft.  And the technical aspect that Dante gives her craft makes it quite realistic, which I loved.  Dante spends most of the novel investigating and arguing with her demon guardian, Japhrimel.  Saintcrow makes it obvious that Dante has a past, but again that is something we don't get much information about until we progress through the series.  I loved the first book.  I immediately went and snapped up the rest to read.

In Dead Man Rising, Dante's past is revealed and the reader gets a glimpse of why Dante is such a pill.  I'm not going to go in depth here, since it would ruin some plot points of both this book and the first one.  Suffice to say, I still really liked Dante at this point.  However, when I hit the third book in the series, I started to get annoyed with Dante.  She's beginning to get a bit whiny and petulant.  And at this point, I still had a hard time blaming her for that since Lucifer is giving her the run around and she's demon hunting again.  By book four, I considered quitting, but I already had it and book five in my possession, so I finished.

All in all, I liked the series.  I just had a hard time with Dante.  Granted, she often ended up with the short end of the stick, but I can think of other similar series where I see the main character continuing to grow and progress.  Dante merely seemed to deal with her issues and doubt herself regularly.  She really strikes me as a very flat character who just happens to have a ton of history that was quite interesting.  What saved the series was the great plot lines.  I'd definitely like to try the Jill Kismet series and see if Saintcrow has the same problem with developing her characters, which would be a shame because her story is so engaging.  If you do like urban fantasy, this would be a good one to read if it's at your library or you run across a copy.