Review: Urban Shaman

Urban Shaman by C.E. Murphy

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I started reading this series because of the short "Easy Pickings", a Jane Yellowrock/Joanne Walker crossover which happens in a sort of parallel universe. So basically I'm coming down off a Yellowrock high and start reading the Walker series. I'm not sure what it is, what's missing. But something is missing. Yellowrock I couldn't put down. Had to be reading it or die. Walker? Not so much. I enjoy the books, but I can stop in the middle of one and go clean house or whatever.

I like the concept- a sort of expatriate of The People (Cherokee Nation) flees the tribe to become a mechanic and eventually police officer, much to her chagrin. She inadvertently discovers her shamanic powers, mayhem ensues. It's a great concept for a story. It's a good story, as written. I think part of the problem is that it moves at a snail's pace. By book three we are still establishing that there *could* be a thing with that other character, but it's going to go sooooo slllloooooowww we can barely see movement.
And the thing with Cernunnos? SO much potential for hotness. You can see the beginning of something really really hot, but it just sort of....stops. Not as in cliffhanger stops, but just, nothing. And then there's the thing that's not a thing but that could be a thing but you never know because it just moves...soooo...slooooow.

There are a lot of points here that one can trace to Patricia Briggs skinwalker/shapeshifter series with Mercedes Thompson, who is, by the by, a mechanic. I haven't looked at the timeline for who wrote what when, and I suppose there's a good bit of synchronicity going on, but we have three series about Native American women who are all badass (nothing wrong with that) characters, and one starts to see a bit of overlap. But it's all good. Everyone is their own person.

Still, all that said, it's an entertaining series. I just wish it were perhaps a little sexier? And moved a bit faster.



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