Plague ravages the countryside and alters the behaviour of those who are so far unaffected in the Araneae nation. Different cultures live apart and fear one another, so when a young girl of the Segestriidae people is caught grave robbing by a man of the Mimetidae, she instantly thinks he is a cannibal. She fights hard to get away and feels she has nothing to lose; all her family are dead. The man, Murdoch, overpowers her however and brings his captive back to his town, where a woman called Mana learns her name - Kaidi - and bathes her, realising that Kaidi is well connected and promised in marriage to an allied clan.

A TIME OF DYING is the latest in the Araneae Nation series. The Araneae people can produce silk like spider silk from their fingertips and this is used in creative ways, such as tying up a prisoner and tying back a girl's long hair. But Mana explains that the town has almost no meat since the plague struck and the men are unhappy about constant vegetable soup. The majority of deaths were among women but strangely, men have vanished or been found with broken necks. Kaidi meets many of the townsfolks and is obliged to share a room with Murdoch so he can guard her and stop her from running away. She is very inquisitive and can't help investigating the alleged recovery from infection of one woman, as nobody has been known to survive the plague. Her betrothed is coming however, and she's having second thoughts about whether that life is really what she wants....

I enjoyed the previous book, A Cast of Shadows which had fewer characters, and this one does require more concentration on its populated pages. This is a dark fantasy entering the realm of horror, for a plenitude of corpses is bound to attract some rather nasty beings. Hailey Edwards concentrates on the gritty details in her world-building and forests or castles feel very real. A TIME OF DYING will appeal to those who like a touch of adult romance in their fantasy, a dark adventure with crystals, winged harbingers, a spade-wielding heroine and a handsome guardsman with a venomous bite.