Background

Faith Hunter grew up in the Louisiana bayou country.

Education

Hunter graduated from college with a degree in Allied Health Technology.

Career

Gunter fell in love with reading in fifth grade, and best-loved SciFi, fantasy, and gothic mystery. She decided to become a writer in high school when a teacher told her she had talent. Now, she writes full-time and works full-time in a hospital lab, (for the benefits) tries to keep house, and is a workaholic with a passion for travel.

The dark urban fantasy Skinwalker series, featuring Jane Yellowrock is composed of Skinwalker, Blood Cross, Mercy Blade, the compilation eBook Cat Tales, Raven Cursed, the compilation eBook Have Stakes Will Travel, Death’s Rival, Blood Trade, Jane Yellowrock World Companion (December 2013) and Black Arts (January 2014).

Her Rogue Mage novels, a dark, urban fantasy series - Bloodring, Seraphs, and Host - feature Thorn St. Croix, a stone mage in a post-apocalyptic, alternate reality, urban fantasy world. These novels are the basis for the world book/role-playing game, Rogue Mage. Rogue Mage contains lots of fiction!

Along with other published writers, Faith participates in an online writing community geared to helping fantasy writers with tips and publishing advice called "Magical Words".

Achievements

• Faith is a winner of the WH Smith Literary Award for Fresh Talent in 1995 in the United Kingdom and won a Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award in 2008. As Faith, her books have been on the New York Times and USA Today Bestseller lists, been nominated for various awards and won an Audie Award with Khristine Hvam. Under all her pen names, she has more than 40 books, anthologies, and complications in print in 30 countries.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Death's Rival

    (Jane Yellowrock is a shapeshifting skinwalker you don’t w...)

    2012
  • Mercy Blade

    (Jane, a shapeshifting vampire-hunter-for-hire, crosses pa...)

    2011
  • Tribulations

    (These stories and vignettes, set in Faith Hunter's Rogue ...)

    2016
  • Shattered Bonds

    (Jane Yellowrock must dig deep and find the strength withi...)

    2019
  • Kicking It

    (Boot-loving Cadogan vampire Lindsey must team up with off...)

    2013
  • Iron and Magic

    (Hugh knows he must carve a new place for himself and his ...)

    2018
  • Blood in Her Veins

    (Jane welcomes a visit from Molly and her daughter, Angie,...)

  • Black Arts

    (When Evan Trueblood blows into town looking for his wife,...)

    2014
  • Blood Trade

    (Jane Yellowrock is a shape-shifting skinwalker who’s alwa...)

    2013
  • Jane Yellowrock World Companion

    (The gritty, sexy, and thrilling New Orleans of the Jane Y...)

    2013
  • Broken Soul

    (Jane Yellowrock is a vampire killer for hire - but other ...)

  • Blackwater Secrets

    (Geneva Deveraux Stone swore that she would never return t...)

    2007
  • Dark Heir

    (Shapeshifting skinwalker Jane Yellowrock is the best in t...)

    2015
  • Grave Concerns

    (Life in a small town can take some interesting twists - e...)

    2004
  • Dark Queen

    (Jane Yellowrock used to hunt vampires, but now she must f...)

    2018
  • Temporally Deactivated

    (Experience a historical moment through the intervention o...)

    2019
  • Raven Cursed

    (Jane Yellowrock is a shape-shifting skinwalker and vampir...)

    2012
  • Black Water

    (In Snafu, a young Jane shows up for her internship with a...)

    2016
  • Blood Cross

    (Jane Yellowrock is back on the prowl against the children...)

    2010
  • Shadow Rites

    (Slaying vampires is child’s play for skinwalker Jane Yell...)

    2016
  • Deadly Remedy

    (As a physician in the ER of a rural South Carolina hospit...)

    2003
  • Seraphs

    (Living among humans in a post-apocalyptic ice age, Thorn ...)

    2007
  • Host

    (In a post-apocalyptic ice age, neomage Thorn St. Croix wa...)

    2007
  • Cold Reign

    (Jane Yellowrock is a shape-shifting skinwalker... and the...)

    2017
  • Water Witch

    (Hannah Everhart is a witch. She's also a thief, having st...)

    2015
  • Bloodring

    (Thorn St. Croix is no ordinary neomage. Nearly driven ins...)

    2006
  • Delayed Diagnosis

    (Dr. Rhea Lynch left a suffocating life in Charleston to p...)

    2001
  • Prescribed Danger

    (Dr. Rhea Lynch has seen it all - most of it at 2:00 a.m. ...)

    2002
  • The Death of All Things 2017
  • Have Stakes Will Travel 2012

Views

Quotations: "I love voice and tone and all the wonderful feelings that a good writer can evoke. When writers can make me block out my world and fall into theirs, that is the best thing evah! But when a character doesn’t grow, isn’t someone I could become friends with, and makes the same mistakes over and over, I want to toss the book across the room."

"My characters are women who don’t need others to make them whole. Characters, and for that matter, real people, who feel incomplete without others, who feel weak without others, who feel empty and frightened unless they are part of a herd, have a mentality will never let them be true heroes. My characters, despite being flawed and having real weaknesses, are not herd creatures. They stand alone and they stand and fight for what’s right. And that means taking on the big bad uglies of society."

"Advice for less experienced writers? Don’t take the easy way out. Don’t write what is easy. Write what is difficult. Write the thing that makes you sweat and weep and push through to make your book and your characters work."

"I like heroes. Heroes lift others up, put others first. Heroes are not made smaller when others are made larger. Heroes know who they are and want the best for others. They are loyal and self-defining. They are strong enough to be soft. My male heroes and my female heroes fit this definition."

"As a writer, I have to be aware that immature people and immature relationships almost always follow toxic formulas. It’s easy to write an immature character and a lot harder to write a full-bodied mature character. I try to take the hard road. Always. The hard road means a better book."

"The pen is mightier than the sword, right? My job isn’t to teach or preach or show toxicity. My job isn’t to change the world. Not that I’m stepping away from responsibility or opportunity. But “showing a better way” and “preaching a new concept” has to be secondary to writing a good story. THAT is my job. The conflict resolution and character development have to come first. If people see a lesson in the thematic underpinnings of a story, well that is great and I am honoured. But ripping the blinders off of society is a tough job. Telling a great story is what they pay me for. And the times I can do both? That is the icing on the cake!"

"For me personally, I have refused to blurb any book that uses toxic predator/prey methodologies, Stockholm syndrome, or other toxic tropes in the romantic angle. I have no idea what the editors think when I tell them no, that I won’t blurb a book that depicts toxic elements as a norm, but I am very frank in my replies about the problems. We all have a responsibility, and this is where I take my stand. I say no. A lot."

Personality

Faith used to be sort of Bohemian gypsy-queen belly dancer meets Biker Chick. She still likes lots of soft shimmery fabrics. Skirts and Lucchese boots, sandals in summer to show off red toenails. Wetsuit or shorts with all the proper PPEs for kayaking. Jeans and tees on her day off. And lots of jewelry that she makes herself.

Faith loves orchids. Her favorite time of year is when several are blooming. She collects bones and skulls. Many of her orchid pics are juxtaposed with bones and skulls - a fox, cat, dog, cow skull, goat, and deer skull, and the jawbone of an ass.

Her very favorite sport is kayaking. Faith discovered whitewater paddling when she was researching her (Gwen Hunter) mystery book, Rapid Descent. She took a lesson and - after a bout of panic attacks from fear of drowning - discovered she loved the sport. Here is what she stated herself about doing sport: "Staying active is hard for a writer. We sit when we write. We sit on the way to signings. At signings. On the way to conferences. On panels at cons. It’s difficult to stay active when one’s income and greatest joy in life requite a state of near immobility! And worse, due to health issues, I was a couch potato for many years. I’ve been rehabbing my body back into some kind of shape for the last decade! I work hard to keep my body in motion."

She and her husband, traveling to whitewater rivers all over the Southeast.

Physical Characteristics: Hair Color: blond

Eyes: grayish-hazel

Interests

• jewelry making, traveling, collecting

• Sport & Clubs

  kayaking, yoga

Connections

Faith Hunter resides in South Carolina with her husband, Rod Hunter.

husband:

Rod Hunter

collaborator:

Gary T. Leveille

References

• Official website of New York Times bestselling paranormal fantasy author, Faith Hunter