Written in Red: Anne Bishop (The Others: Book One)

I am getting very, very tired of being unable to find book covers on Google bigger than 300 friggin pixels. I had to take this one and upload it from my phone. So I'm sorry if it looks like a cell phone picture (even if I do have a GS4...)

Written in Red is the first book in what looks to be perhaps the most interesting fantasy series I have ever read--even more interesting than Bishop's older Black Jewels series, a set of novels I devoured several years ago as a middle schooler. First published last year, but released in paperback in March of this year, the obvious question that follows that claim is: What makes this book different?

As seen in three series prior to this from Bishop, the author is far from averse to creating her own universes. Black Jewels, Ephemera and Tir Alainn are all series set in unique landscapes, designed to facilitate the types of events that play out within them. Unlike the three series listed above, The Others is a series that takes place in a world quite similar to our own, but with some very key differences.

Namely, humans are definitely not at the top of the food chain. Taking their place in Namid, the name for the world in which they live, are the terra indigene, or, the 'Earth Natives'. Preceding the story is a brief history of the world, which explains that when humans tried to spread out onto new continents, the Others ate them. All of them. The third human to lead his people into the Others's territory was smarter than his predecessors and brought trade items, which paved the way for human-terra indigene interaction over the course of the next several generations until hamlets became towns became cities, but were still under the thumb of creatures far from averse to eating them.

The novel follows a young woman (age 24) by the name of Meg Corbyn, who has escaped from somewhere and is seeking someplace to live freely. She finds herself in a Courtyard (areas fully controlled by Others in which human law does not apply) and applies for a position called "Liaison"--even not knowing what it meant. Simon Wolfgard (a Wolf, but for the first time in my fantasy career, never a werewolf) hires her instead of turning her away, even though her hair stinks (she dyed parts of it orange in an attempt to disguise herself) and it is apparent that she's not quite telling him the whole truth. It turns out that the Liaison's job is actually a mail collector/sorter/distributor, and must be human because of a slew of impertinent-here reasons.
As Meg acquaints herself with the position, she sets numerous terra indigene on edge, irritates many, confuses many others, and befriends every single one of them. Meg's life before running away was a caged one, in which she was considered property and designated CS759--cassandra sangue 759: Meg was a blood prophet, whose skin was deliberately sliced open in order to obtain prophecies from her... for a price. A steep price, as it were, which is why her Controller is rather insistent upon her return.

The main plots in this novel--and there are definitely more than one--include the plot for reaquisition of Meg Corbyn, an aspiring actress's attempt to gain forbidden information and ultimately steal a Wolf pup, and the sudden appearance of a terrifying new drug that cannot be explained by humans or terra indigene until the very end, when Simon Wolfsgard figures it out--although that's a secret you can't make me divulge.

Through a dramatic series of frustrating events, told through a cycle of perspectives not limited to Meg and Simon, we get to know a relatively large cast of characters through not only their own consciousnesses, but also through the minds of those around them. While the novel is packed with drama and high tension, there is also a massive amount of humor--two things Bishop is very, very good at pairing and balancing. Because Meg manages to befriend nearly everybody--including those the Sanguinati (based on Vampires, but definitely more dangerous than that) and Wolves privately fear--her health and well-being are highly important to a number of persons, and when those two things are threatened, the human populations (especially her enemies) are essentially attacked via weather until the threat is, how shall I say, neutralized.

Having thoroughly enjoyed Ms. Bishop's Black Jewels series, I admit that I had very, very high expectations for this novel. However, where Black Jewels was often crass and indelicate--particularly in terms of sex/uality--The Others has none of that, although as of yet the sex has been glossed over when it's appeared, although I suspect that the glossing is more because it's irrelevant than because she's not intending to highlight it ever. It wouldn't be the author's style. Written in Red so exceeded my expectations that I have shirked my duties the past two days just to read it. Now that I've finished it, I'm slightly perturbed that I didn't buy the second book at the same time. In my defense, I was broke, and buying it was kind of an act of defiance. (Leave it to me to be rebellious by buying a book.)

Bishop's novel has received five brilliantly shiny gold stars from this lit critic and novel enthusiast. As an enthusiast, my opinion may be a bit biased--especially considering how fond I am of the author--but nobody's complained about my interpretation yet, so I guess I can't be that opaquely slanted. Or maybe I am, and that's not a bad thing yet.

With that, I have nothing more to add.

Happy reading
--Emily Renae

Finding It by Cora Carmack

MAJOR SPOILER ALERT. DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE GOING TO GET SERIOUSLY MAD AT ME BECAUSE YOU HAVE THUS BEEN WARNED.

Finding It is the third book in Cora Carmack's "Losing It" series. Each of the three books, Losing It, Faking It, and Finding It follow a different protagonist, but all of them tie together via a character named Bliss, and this is, so far, the only connection I've found between them. (I haven't read the first one, but I do believe that it's Bliss's story.)

Finding It follows Kelsey, who is backpacking around Europe to acquire a story, or a collection of them, which would make the rest of her boring, uncomfortable life--to which she has resigned herself--worthwhile for the sake of having said story(ies). The problem is that, regardless of where she goes, she does the exact same things: Gets appallingly drunk and has meaningless sex with men she deems attractive enough to get her lady parts excited.

And then along comes Hunt, and he rocks her world so hard that she can't get it back on straight, as if it were to begin with. Suddenly, the two of them are off on an adventure so real--and so sexually frustrating--that Kelsey is finally forced to face the demons of her past. The problem is that she doesn't want to because, gee imagine: it's painful. She's spent her entire life running from her pain and telling herself she was being overly dramatic and it didn't matter--because they were the lies her parents fed her when she was vulnerable--and now that she's faced with something real, something that matters, she is haunted by all of that which she has allowed to happen which didn't [matter]. And it's causing her panic attacks, some milder than others. But she keeps trying to be an alcoholic.

What you learn is that Hunt has his own ghosts, his own muddled past which he's trying to keep hidden as well. But when these two get together, there's nothing which can keep them apart, not even Hunt's willpower. He wants Kelsey so badly he can't handle it, but he waits, and waits, and waits, because he wants it to actually mean something.

The climax of the novel is the heart-wrenching discovery that Hunt was hired by Kelsey's father to keep an eye on her in Europe and has been following her for the past couple of months. But when he saw her falling into his old patterns, he couldn't help but step in and try to save her from a downfall infinitely worse than that which she was already burying.

Kelsey runs away, heartbroken and angry, and instead of going home, she sets up a new life in Spain and becomes a teacher (in English, of course) with a second job in order to pay her bills and survive efficiently. But soon, Hunt is leaving her letters, and when she ignores them, they start appearing everywhere until she finally gives in and reads them. All of them.

The novel is a very fast read; I started it before bed one night and finished it the following afternoon in approximately 5 hours or so total. Maybe. If that. It's a light read, although much of the material is heavily laden with enough emotion to have sent me into a book hangover for several hours. Finding It is well-written and beautifully executed; the tension is real, as is the dialogue, and the places are described well enough that you feel as though you're there. The characters in this book are disastrously paralleled to my own relationship, and perhaps that's why it affected me so thoroughly, but I found it highly pragmatic and very moving.

I gave it 5 stars on Goodreads because I enjoyed the shit out of it. I thoroughly enjoyed Faking It as well; I just read it long enough ago that I'm not convinced I could give a sufficient review on it. (Apologies.)



--Emily Renae