Meg has built a life for herself among the Others and
with Simon – and even has her own human pack. Not that it’s going particularly
smoothly, the Others don’t understand the humans, the humans don’t understand
the Others and the werewolf Simon has no idea why he can sleep in her bed while
wearing fur but not as a naked man. They’re all confused – but they’re learning
and they’re trying.
The rest of the country, not so much. Tensions between
the Others and the humans are reaching new peaks, especially with the new drugs
on the market that seem almost designed to help humans kill the Others. Bodies
are piling up, human rhetoric is getting more and more extreme – and the Others
are becoming more and more impatient.
The tensions need to be defused before the Others finally
snap – and more human cities are reduced to body-littered wastelands.
To me, what really makes this book beyond it’s excellent
and well developed world and it’s exciting and engaging story is the
characterisation. The way these characters interact and engage with each other
is what truly makes the books. Simon’s constant confusion around Meg and her
new developed human pack (the Exploding Fluffballs) and the whole community of
Others all trying to understand these Humans-Who-Are-Not-Food is delightful to
see and adds so much to the world. I have an incredible sense of how the Other
culture works, how the different creatures work from the alien Elementals to
the fun Crows to the Savage Wolves and the enigmatic Sanguinati by watching how they navigate around these
confusing humans. This book also takes a step in showing how really weird
Lakeside is, with the close relationship between humans and Others and adds
another sense of how even these confused Others are super-well informed
compared to most
But we also see Meg and her own confusion not just with
the Others but humanity in general. The more we learn of her story, how the
Blood Prophets are abused and kept in captivity, how insulated they are, the
stranger and more incredible Meg seems. Not because of her super powers or
fighting skills – but because she has endured and learned and grown and built
her own life despite overwhelming odds. And, if anything, Meg’s incredible
achievement pales next to Jean – defiant while helpless, determined to engineer
the downfall of her enemies with a willpower that is awe inspiring. On a much
lesser scale, we see the Exploding Fluffballs proving their worth and
determination and intelligence over and over again (even if we do have the
Others calling periods “female craziness” which does Not Amuse them).
And we have female Others being dangerous and powerful – just so that all this female strength isn’t just the ability to endure and be crafty; in fact Tess is probably the most powerful Other there, excepting the Elementals who, again, are female and terrifying.
And this is definitely a romance I’m enjoying – long,
slow burn, full of denial and cluelessness on both parts with lots of very reasonable
confusion and cuteness. It really works.
