Full review at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books 
 Wake of Vultures is not a romance (although there's a romance in it) and it ends on a cliffhanger. Seriously - the characters are left on the edge of a literal cliff. I realize that cliffhangers are a non-starter for many readers, but keep this in mind: Wake of Vultures is also an excellent, gritty, terrifying and fantastical Western about Nettie, who dresses as a boy and who is both bisexual and biracial (African American and Native American). Nettie fights monsters in a magical version of Texas and along the way she also fights internalized sexism and racism. It's kickass. 
 This book is violent and gritty. It includes racism, sexism, rape and threat of rape, death of infants and death of animals. It's not a light-hearted romp - in fact, it's so replete with triggers that I never would have read it had I known what I was getting into. And yet it's also powerful, triumphant, cinematic, satisfying - and surprisingly absorbing considering all that mayhem. Underneath the Buffy-Meets-Pecknipah supernatural violence, this is a coming of age story about a person who learns to value herself and others. 
 This book succeeds because Nettie is such a compelling character. Nettie is incredibly vibrant, prickly, compelling, flawed, exciting, and interesting. She feels like a real person, with a real personality and hopes and dreams and confused feelings and agendas. She's incredibly interesting not only because of her unusual racial situation (which, in the Old West, wasn't actually very unique but has been under-represented in fiction) nor in her genderqueer status, nor in her ability to hunt monsters. She's compelling because all her experiences and aspects of her personality and her sharp mind come together to create a complex person who you just have to root for. 
 - Carrie S.