Blood Rock is the awesome second book in the Skindancer series by Anthony Francis. I finished way after midnight and although I wanted to know how it all worked out, I was just not ready to leave Dakota’s world.

Blood Rock dives even deeper into the magic that ink and paint can produce than Frost Moon did. Except it’s a different kind of paint. Where Frost Moon was all about the magic that could be held in tattoos, Blood Rock dives into the depths of both the underpinnings of magical Atlanta and the darkness driving one particular grafitti scribe’s genius.

The graffiti has turned deadly. Dakota is called to the scene of a crime, while the crime is in progress. A friend, a vampire named Revenance (his clan deliberately misspells their names) is trapped by a graffiti tag on a concrete wall that is draining his vampiric energy. It will also keep him trapped in full daylight after sunrise, which is coming on fast. Everyone who attempts to save Revy is whipped and clawed by the vines that trap him in the tag. Even the vines from Dakota’s own magical tats aren’t enough to fight back.

As Dakota investigates the grafitti tags, and Revy’s death, she discovers that her friend was not the first victim of these new, and suddenly deadly, tags. And the trap is not the only way it kills, nor is vampire the only kind of prey it seems to be after. There have been mysterious fires caused by these tags, and human, vampire and werekin deaths attributed to them. The spiral of death is rising upward.

And Dakota has more hostages to fortune than she did before. She has a daughter. Cinnamon is werekin, a tiger. Among the weres, she was Stray Foundling, one of many. But to Dakota, she is special, and loved.

When Dakota’s investigation of the malevolent “Streetscribe” begins to bear fruit, dark forces maneuver against her. Dakota is accused of committing the crimes, in an attempt to get her behind bars. Old-school vampire politics rears its ugly death’s head (where there are vampires, there are always convoluted politics).

Dakota needs more information, and more knowledge. She needs more training. And for that, she needs to go back to her old master, back in Blood Rock. But there are factions who want to keep her from ever speaking with Arcturus. The question is, are those factions just old enemies of Dakota’s, or are they part of this new threat? And if she can’t find a way to get to Arcturus to learn what she needs, will it matter?

Escape Rating A: I loved the twists and turns in this one. The story was one wild ride. The Skindancer series is a standout new urban fantasy series. Dakota is a kick-ass heroine, true, but I also love the use of Atlanta as the base. When Dakota drives by Gwinnett Mall in Blood Rock, I really did laugh out loud–I live ten minutes from there. A less likely scene for an urban fantasy I can’t imagine. On the other hand, Underground Atlanta, oh yes!

But it’s the complex relationships that make this work. Atlanta as an “edge” place between the new magic of the 21st century and the old world of the supernatural where everyone and everything hid in the shadows.   Just as Atlanta has always prided itself on being “the new South”, that parallel works.

Dakota herself represents that edge. She practices a very new type of magic, and she doesn’t hide what she does. She is her own best walking advertisement. Her ex is a vampire. Her other ex is one of the “Men in Black”. Her daughter is werekin. And her father was a cop. Everyone knows her, and practically everyone owes her.  There’s way more to this story.

I want book 3, Liquid Fire now!

Frost Moon by Anthony Francis is the absolutely marvelous opening book in his Skindancer series featuring magical tattooist Dakota Frost. The first full moon in November is also called the “frost moon”. In Anthony Francis’ alternate version of Atlanta, that’s important.

Dakota Frost is the best magical tattooist in the Southeast. Just ask her. She works out of the Rogue Unicorn, which is located in Little Five Points, in a part of Atlanta known to the cognoscenti as the Edgeworld. And Dakota is definitely one of those in the know.

I said she was a magical tattooist. I didn’t just mean that her tats were magically beautiful, I meant that they were literally magic. The vines inked on her arms can reach out and trip pull her enemies down, never mind about that dragon inked on her back.

But Dakota’s magical ink makes her both a police expert consultant and a potential next victim when someone starts murdering people in order to “harvest” their magical tattoos. And Dakota’s not just the only potential victim. Every person with a magical tat is sudden a target. There are a lot of those in Dakota’s Atlanta, including the entire werewolf community and everyone who has ever requested a magical ward or even just a moving butterfly.

Meanwhile, there’s a magician in town (the other kind, a stage magician) who believes that all magic is bunk. He’s challenged Dakota to prove that her not faked, and will pay her a million bucks if she can prove her stuff is the real thing.

And on the other side of town, or should I say the under side of town, there’s a lone werewolf who wants Dakota to give him an extra special ward, one that will control his beast, before the full moon in ten days time. Trying to get this new tat verified with the local head werewolf and her witch friend to make sure that the tat is not black magic brings down even more trouble on her head.

And gets her ex-girlfriend involved. Her ex-girlfriend is now the head of the Vampire Consulate. They broke over the whole vampire thing. Dakota didn’t want her to turn, but well, Savannah did it anyway.

Dakota makes a lot of her own trouble by rushing in where both fools and angels would fear to tread. Nothing is as it seems. This one will keep you guessing until the end.

Escape Rating A: Dakota Frost is a terrific character. She makes mistakes, she screws up, but she keeps on going. She’s someone I’d like to have a drink with, or several. Her Atlanta is a place I might want to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. It’s geography is so close to the Atlanta I live in, it’s eerie. The way she weaves in and out of the real Atlanta reminds me of the way Simon R. Green works with London in the Nightside, and that’s a high compliment. I love his Nightside series.

This was awesome. I would never have read Frost Moon or Blood Rock if Bell Bridge hadn’t put both books of this series back on NetGalley, so thank you, thank you for a couple of well spent but very late nights reading.

Any time the “Men in Black” turn out to be the “good guys” you know the story is turned inside-out-sideways but you’re in for a load of fun. Spend some quality time with Dakota Frost, you’ll be glad you did.