Death's Rival by Faith Hunter

Jane Yellowrock is a shapeshifting skinwalker you don’t want to cross—especially if you’re one of the undead… For a vampire killer like Jane, having Leo Pellisier as a boss took some getting used to. But now, someone is out to take his place as Master Vampire of the city of New Orleans, and is not afraid to go through Jane to do it. After an attack that’s tantamount to a war declaration, Leo knows his rival is both powerful and vicious, but Leo’s not about to run scared. After all, he has Jane. But then, a plague strikes, one that takes down vampires and makes their masters easy prey. Now, to uncover the identity of the vamp who wants Leo’s territory, and to find the cause of the vamp-plague, Jane will have to go to extremes…and maybe even to war.

4.5 stars

As if Jane doesn't have enough going on, now she has to deal with a vampire plague, and she finds out exactly what it means to be Leo's Enforcer.
This was great! Full of action. As always, I loved the characters, especially the new additions Eli and Alex.

I would say that it's not that I think this is the worst book in the series so far just that I liked the others more, if that's not the same thing. This installment was like an experiment of changes in the series and while I could really appreciate some–like delving deeper into Jane's childhood and her family–there were other twists that were a shock to the system but not completely unbelievable. The latter was something that I had to come to terms with but the author did an excellent job with the aftermath of that one big twist. However, it's the repercussions of the big twists in the books that I don't like because they are never fully disseminated. It's more of a wait-and-see situation, which I wouldn't normally mind but these are some REALLY BIG TWISTS were talking about here. (And I'm not talking about just in this installment, but over the last few.)

Overall, I liked this book just fine. There was nothing I really latched onto for enjoyment but I did appreciate the character development and world building.