Frost Moon

Remarkably enjoyable, more restrained than expected - which is excellent - with an inventive world, fun characters, and a consideration to enough (though not all) details. Very obviously the start of a series, it sets the scene well.

Dakota Frost is a skindancer - a tattooist of magical (and mundane) icons which imbued with power can take on a life of their own. A contact requests her to ink a control charm on a werewolf enabling him to keep his beast in check. Having a strict moral code, Dakota delays so that she can get the image checked out for unintended effects. What with one thing and another -giving some advise to local police, contacting the were-specialist and dealing with the consequences - a hectic couple of weeks ensue and show more full moon is drawing near before she gets the ok. Then Wulf can't be found, and so Dakota has to make some brave decisions ...

I loved the way the story just jumped in to an Atlanta comfortable with the existence of the edgeworld. No protracted explanations or outcries of false shock were needed. The otherworld exists, the mortal world does, and both are happy with the edgeworld and it's most prevalent existence in Little Five Points. (Just one typographical bug slipped through as the initials L5P, all the rest of the time it was spelt out). The beginning couple of chapters were a bit disjointed as one thing seemed to happen after another without any particular reason, but subsequent events tied it all together very nicely, I was impressed at how little got overlooked.

I liked Dakota as a character, and while she's obviously got a few personal skeletons in the closet to come out in later books, we got to see both her strengths and her weaknesses - no Mary Sue here. Her vulnerability after an attack was particularly well done. I wasn't totally convinced by her sexuality and ability to flirt with absolutely everyone she met. Initially I was concerned this was heading into the 'sex sells so stuff some in' paranormal romances of Hamilton and many others in the urban fantasy genre, but actually it was well handled with restraint and delicacy - something the author will have to maintain in later books. The issues of ethics and religion are likewise lightly and sensibly restrained. I wasn’t expecting them to have been mentioned at all, and there is a risk of them coming across somewhat preachy – especially Dakota’s bold statement “I am a Christian” when she doesn’t act like one. But these conflicts will hopefully rise to give interesting situations in later books.

The downsides: The age old problem of how a civilian can co-exist with the police. I just don't buy how friendly the police are with all the civilians in this book - or many others. Federal agent, Phillip, would keep personal and official lives separate, and transfer off the case if he couldn't. Ditto for the consequences of the finale, where the author has been fairly good at consequences throughout the book, here he lets the reader down. Other characters: Dakota has sole voice, which is my preferred style. However it does mean that other characters can come across a little thin, seldom with more than walk on parts. Frost Moon is fairly short - again a good thing - but it does leave the reader wondering about several of Dakota's companions, and her family especially her estranged dad. Hopefully more details will be revealed in later episodes.

Overall it’s good fun. Short, sharp and inventive, I was particularly impressed by the magic system. The fast pacing and clever world that is populated with a good mix of decent and untrustworthy people make it an entertaining read, setting up what promises to be many books of fun, and even the option of some real insight into the issues of dealing with the Other.

An excellant start to what could be a fascinating urban fantasy series - providing a few pitfalls are avoided. I'd particularly like to see some longrunning arch, rather than a concatenation of events. I'll be reading them to find out!

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When I read the synopsis for this book, I just knew I had to read it! Magical tattoos? I'm there! What I got was so much more than I was expecting!

The MC, Dakota Frost, is bad ass, 6'2", not including the height her mohawk adds, and covered in tats - how could I not love her? She dresses to show off her "assets" and barges into danger without thinking twice if her friends need her help. She owns a tattoo parlor in the Little Five Points area of Atlanta and is best known for her "magical tattoos", tats that actually move, including butterflies that rise up off of your skin and fly around! I love it! She also hangs out with a very eclectic group: vampires, werewolves, magicians, and a blind witch (one of my favorite characters). She's show more called in by the cops to help find a serial killer who is removing the magical tats from people's skin while they're still alive. She's also helping the DEI (Department of Extraordinary Investigations), which includes a very special man in black.

The world building is awesome in this book! When Dakota starts asking around and goes beneath the city to question the Edgeworlders who hang there, I could feel the menacing atmosphere. The pace was quick but not so quick that you didn't have time to get to know the secondary characters. One of my other favorites was a stray weretiger named Cinnamon who attached herself to Dakota! She was so cute and energetic, and she brought out the protective mama bear side of Dakota that seemed to round out her personality.

All in all, I loved this book and I can't wait to read the next book in the series. I highly recommend it to fans of paranormal/fantasy with awesome kick ass heroines:D show less

Dakota Frost is a magical tattoo artist, the best in the SouthEast, with a mohawk that adds even more height to her 6ft2 heavily tattooed frame, a penchant for leather and an eye for a gorgeous man, or woman – she’s not particularly fussy. I love Dakota, she is feisty and confident and is a little different from the usual urban fantasy heroine. Dakota identifies her self as a Skindancer – her tattoo’s are more than just art, she has the ability to make her tattoos live, the vines that adorn her body can create an impenetrable barrier, the butterfly on her wrist can flap it’s wings and flutter around the room and the dragon that is wrapped sinuously around her entire body will save her life. Yet Dakota isn’t invincible, show more behind the bravado she is ill-equipped to defend herself and when she becomes the target of a serial killer we learn of her physical and emotional vulnerability.
There are some quirky support characters including Dakota’s ex girlfriend who is a Christian vampire Queen, the blind graphomancer/witch and a rather unprofessional man in black. The most delightful is Cinnamon, a teenage were tiger stray who attaches herself to Dakota with fierce devotion. It will be interesting to see how these characters play out during the series.
The plot of Frost Moon is fast paced and cleverly layered, there are several seemingly disparate threads that slowly weave together as the story unfolds. This is a gritty urban fantasy, there are some scenes and innuendo that are unpleasant though (with the exception of one which includes a ball gag and a cage) I didn’t feel they were gratuitous. However I didn’t think Dakota needed to salivate over everyone that crossed her path but I wrote that off as a misstep of a male author and was willing to overlook it.
I thought the world building was creative though I could have done without the street by street tour of Atlanta, it probably has more significance for someone who knows the city but I didn’t find it relevant. There is plenty of interesting variety in the population though, vampires, weres of all descriptions, magicians, witches to name just a few. The Edgeworlders are part of the human world but very much on it’s fringes at the same time.

Frost Moon is an interesting and imaginative urban fantasy series debut with attitude. It’s a little darker than most with some raw edges but I am looking forward to seeing in what direction the author takes the second installment. Luckily I have Blood Rock to directly follow up with. show less

Technically(if one should need a technicality and genre label), this could be called a paranormal amateur sleuth mystery since Dakota Frost is a tattoo artist who gets pulled into the mystery. But mostly what this is, in actuality, is a kickass Urban Fantasy.
I am so glad that this is the beginning of a series. It took me a bit to get comfortable reading it in the beginning, the story felt a little rough around the edges. Once I got past page 20 or so, I was right at home with Dakota Frost and her urban fantasy world of vampires and were-kin and, best of all, magick filled tattoos. That’s what Dakota does, she creates tattoos, most of the magick-filled in the tattoo palace, The Rogue Unicorn. She’s tattooed her own and what I show more wouldn’t give to see the flowers, butterflies and especially the dragon that moves and reacts to stimuli.
Dakota is brought into a police investigation of a serial killer whose targeted victims have magical tattoos. She also has been hired to ink a specific magical tattoo on a werewolf who wants more control at the full moon. Both of these events soon yank her all the way into a murky world of human and the Edgeworld of paranormal creatures.
She meets up with police investigators, a ‘man in black’ Fed who work for the Department of Extraordinary Investigations, and has to deal with her ex, now the Queen of Little Five Points Vampires and working for the Vampire Consulate of Little Five Points. There is also the werewolf who needs her help, and possibly her companionship, to work the tattoo that will perhaps help him control his beast side.
There are so many possibilities of who could be the serial killer, but not irritatingly so. No, it was suspenseful each time a possibility showed up.

This is a SUPERB Urban Fantasy/paranormal amateur sleuth start of a series!!

MORE SOONEST, PLEASE sparkly diamonds!!! show less

Dakota Frost #1: Frost Moon, by Anthony Francis

WOW! "Frost Moon" is THE urban fantasy novel I've been waiting for. I hesitate on writing this review, because I just can't put into words my love for this book. But I'll try.

Dakota is a skindancer, a tattooist who can imbue magic powers into her ink. She lives in an edgeworld Atlanta that welcomes werewolves, vampires, witches and more; Dakota herself is a magician thanks to her tattoos. The "Edgeworld" is the world the author has created, a sort of border or barrier where normal and magic meet.

Bluntly put, Dakota is one kick-ass chick. She's sarcastic and tough, yet compassionate and loyal, and sometimes even vulnerable. I was honestly a little surprised to find out the author was male - show more Dakota is a such believable female main character. I loved her instantly. In fact the beginning of "Frost Moon" reminds me a bit of Jacqueline Carey's novels, in that Dakota introduces herself to the reader, in a "this is me, here I am, love me or hate me" approach. Throughout the course of "Frost Moon," she befriends a were-cat orphan, feels sorry for a were-wolf, falls for an FBI/DEI agent, deals with her ex-girlfriend, and more. But Dakota's characterization doesn't falter in any of those situations, and the reader's image of her stays constant from the start of the book.

The plot of "Frost Moon" is best left a secret - you'll want to discover all the twists and turns of the plot yourself as you navigate through Dakota's world. But to tantalize you: the Department of Extraordinary Investigations is hunting a serial killer who takes the tattooed skin of his victims. The DEI originally calls Dakota in as a consultant, due to her expertise in magical tattooing. But she's quickly in the thick of things as events move at warp-speed around her. The ending shocked me, because I'd never been able to guess just who the killer was - I liked the unpredictability.

Dakota is an amazing character. But so is literally every other single supporting character Francis created. I wanted to know more about every single person introduced, from Spleen the Rat to Cinnamon, to Lady Saffron, and on and on. Each character has some hook that grabs at the reader; the cast of "Frost Moon" will stick with me for quite a while.

I enjoy the author's style; sometimes he is a little heavy-handed with descriptions, but personally I like that. I like having lots of information about a new world, and Dakota's world is one of the fresher urban fantasy ones I've read in a while. Some of his prose is beautiful, especially when painting images of tattoos; I *wish* it were possible to get something like what he's invented! Glittering, moving, magical tattoos? Pretttty.

I do have a complaint or two with "Frost Moon," but they're such minor issues that they didn't detract at all from my enjoyment of the book. One is that the timing is very condensed, very fast, but then that also fits into the plot. The other is the deluge of pop culture references, which could make references to the Matrix and X-Files outdated in a few years, but the references slow down after the first part of the novel. But like I said, just a few minor issues. Nothing big or super distracting.

Overall, as I think is obvious by how much I've written, I was blown away by this book. There was just the perfect mix of mystery, urban fantasy, wit, sarcasm, technology talk, stick-in-your-mind characters, interesting plot, and the slightest hint of romance.

Disclaimer: I did receive an ebook copy of "Frost Moon" to review through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers Program. But on my next Amazon order I'll be picking up a physical copy of "Frost Moon" as an early birthday present; I can't wait to get the book in my hands and read it again, so I can revisit Dakota's world.

Book two, "Blood Rock," is due later this year I believe. I can't wait!

5/5. show less

A pleasant surprise. Read under anything but the best of circumstances Frost Moon surprised me in a pleasant manner. On first brush it could be described as an anti-Twilight book. The female protagonist is neither a super-hero nor does she orbit around anyone else. More refreshing (and more unusual) the inhabitants of the our "edgewood" such as members of the bdsm culture are treated as varied individuals rather than stereotypes and cardboard cutouts. The world in which the protagonist, Dakota Frost, lives is clearly both like ours and unlike ours. One does not need to know about this world exhaustively in order to follow and enjoy the story--at the same time that world is interesting enough that I want to read more stories set in it. show more The varied 'worlds' that intersect in the story; bdsm, vampires, weres and tattoo artists are presented in such a way that I am convinced that the author knows each well enough to set a story in that world alone. show less

I will be upfront and say that I read this book because my department is hosting a book talk/signing with the author at the Georgia Tech Library on Sept. 1st. So if I didn't like the book I was going to pretend I did until the program is over.

Happily, there is no need for pretense. Frost Moon is an excellent first novel centering on Dakota Frost, a tattoo artist who creates magical tattoos with herself as her best canvas. Her tattoos move, store and release magical energy, and can be transferred from herself to someone else. She works eith a graphomancer who can determine if a design for a magical tattoo is safe and effective.

Dakota gets called in to help the police and a federal agent. They show her a tattoo that has been cut from a show more living body that was then murdered, in hopes she could recognize the artist. So far the killer has killed 12 in different cities, and Dakota and her customers are possible targets for the killer. Dakota is also having her graphomancer evaluate a Nazi design that a werewolf wants in hopes it will better control his beast.

The plot is overall good though there were a few minor points that confused me. I've read a lot in the paranormal genre, enough to be oversaturated and pulling back from reading much more of it. There are only so many vampires and shspeshifters one can tolerate. Francis, however, has come up with a heroine whose unique talent drives the plot, rather like Sookie Stackhouse's telepathy in Charlaine Harris's series. Dakota is an excellent character, and since she is the narrator she is more fully realized than the other characters, of whom there are many, from the almost blind graphomancer Jinx to Dakota's ex-girlfriend Savannah, vampire queen, to federal agent Philip, and more. The author is particularly good at showing the vulnerabilities in even strong characters. Wulf the werewolf wants to be in better control so as to not hurt people or be so alone. Cinammon, the teenage weretiger, is all vulnerability and grows on both Dakota and the reader. Francis also uses the city of Atlanta very well, as events happen in lots of noted city landmarks. Buckhead is the ritzier part of town and becomes Lord Buckhead, a werestag who is the city's protector.

Altogether a recommended first novel and first in a series. The second book should be out by September 2011. show less