Fun but not quite fully fleshed out. The plot moves along at pace, but it leaves too many holes behind that are never quite explained.

Joanne Walker is just returning from a protracted visit to Ireland for her estranged mother's funeral when just as the aeroplane is landing, she spots a woman being chased a (many references are made to the unlikelihood of this, but then never followed up). She rushed through to investigate with the help of a patient cabby, and finds the woman hiding in a church crypt. They're subsequently both attached by a man ona horse with a sword, and Joanne receives a stab wound through her chest. A spirit Guide, helps her choose to heal, and she realises nothing she's ever known will be quite the same as her heritage which she's ignored all her life has come to claim her. She is one of the few Shaman, there to heal the world, starting with the Wild Hunt in Seattle. Most of the character drama comes from her interactions with her employers the city police.

I wasn't utterly sure that casting her as a mechanic with a coyote animal was innovative, because it's very similar to the popular Mercedes in Patricia Brigg's werewolf novels, but the two stories takes sufficiently divergent tracks to be memorably different. ( )

DNF: read maybe 15% but skimmed 30%. I didn't immerse in the setting, the character was a two-dimensional "chip on her shoulder heroine that's supposed to be badass because of her reactive tough attitude", so there wasn't anything anchored enough to pull me in. It's written to be read fast and not thought about. Too many conveniences and characters handle things as if nothing serious actually impacts them--were they even there? Is this just a loose fantasy the author had in her mind and not something she wanted to have good storytelling? It was just too shallow for me. ( )

Great book. In fact great series. Well written. Intriguing, interesting, and creative. I really liked the characters. I got lost in this book and didn't want to put it down. ( )

Urban Shaman was light and fun and also filled with adventure. From the first chapter I was involved and wanted to see where it went. I loved everything about Joann down to her quirky awkwardness. ( )

This was a great urban fantasy story that introduces a series. Joanne Walker is half-Irish half-Cherokee. She is a mechanic who works for the police department and happens to have gone through the police academy successfully.

On a trip home from being with her dying mother, the woman who abandoned her to her father when she was young, she spots a crime happening from the airplane as it approaches landing. When she hires a cab driver to help her find the location and save the woman she saw running from a pack of dogs, she doesn't expect to enter into a whole world pf paranormal creatures or to learn that she is a shaman.

She and her sidekick Gary, the 72-year-old cabdriver, are soon deep into the supernatural as Joanne has to deal with Herne, Cernunnos, and the Wild Hunt. Joanne has never been a believer in much of anything. So having to believe in the supernatural is quite a stretch for her.

Spiritwalking and meeting her spirit guide Coyote do help her find out what is happening, but raises more questions than it answers. Joanne has only a couple of days to heal the world or it and she will be lost.

I really liked Joanne and Gary. Joanne isn't the typical kick-ass urban fantasy heroine. She gets hurt a lot - luckily the ability to heal is one of her new talents. She has her own troubled past which is gradually revealed. She is also not at all certain that she wants to be a serving police officer. She really like being a mechanic instead. But she isn't going to ignore the responsibilities that come with her new powers.

Great story with lots of action and excitement. Excellently narrated by Christine Carroll. ( )