Jana Paniccia has always wanted to be a cop. She studied hard, dealt
with harassment over her gender in the police academy, and was the
only woman who graduated... only to have difficulty getting any sort of
job offer. The opportunity to work in Bennett is one she can't refuse.
The world has changed since the terra indigene literally decimated
entire populations of cities after the rise of the Humans First and Last
movement. Small enclaves of humans and terra indigene are slowly
trying to find peace together after so much death and the small
frontier-like town of Bennett is of those places. But can Jana handle the
WILD COUNTRY when outlaws
come to town to upset the uneasy truce between the terra indigene and
the humans?
WILD COUNTRY is the second
book in the World of the Others and is loosely tied to The
Others series. New readers can easily jump right into WILD COUNTRY as the story line is
separate from the prior book in the series. Readers should note,
however, that this book occurs during the same time frame as ETCHED
IN BONE (book 5 in The Others series) so there are a few spoilers in WILD COUNTRY.
Anne Bishop is a master at creating multi-dimensional characters and
making us care about what happens to them, even after the last page
of the book has been turned. I had to remind myself numerous times
that this was the first time I'd encountered most of the fabulous
characters featured in WILD
COUNTRY. I can easily envision all sorts of stories emerging from
Bennett, whether it's Maddie and her position as a cassandra sangue,
Joshua Painter who is straddling between the human and Panthergard
worlds, or the budding romance between Jana and Tobias Walker. The
hints we get about the Sanguinati have me especially fascinated, even
more so since Jesse Walker now knows a piece of their secrets that
other humans don't.
And oh, Cowboy Bob! Each and every encounter with Cowboy Bob is
priceless. I'm still amazed how something as simple as a stuffed toy
conveys quite a few laughs while showing the growing care that the
terra indigene are feeling for their human packmates. The "Me Time"
moments were another dose of needed humor, but I loved Cowboy Bob
as much as I loved the actual characters. I almost loved Cowboy Bill
more than the Sproingers (from LAKE
SILENCE)!
WILD COUNTRY is yet another
stunning dark fantasy novel penned by the gifted Anne Bishop. WILD COUNTRY is the sort of read
you sit down and savor, even as the tension mounts and you want to
turn the pages quickly to see what happens next. Anne Bishop truly
knows how to craft a novel that readers sink into as the outside world
goes away and we're caught up in the dangerous tensions between
humans and the terra indigene (and never mind the fearsome Elders). If
you love dark fantasy, then you must giveWILD COUNTRY a try! It's one of the best books I've
read this year!
In this powerful and exciting fantasy set in the world of
the New York Times bestselling Others series, humans
and the shape-shifting Others will see whether they can live
side by side...without destroying one another.
There are ghost towns in the world—places where the humans
were annihilated in retaliation for the slaughter of the
shape-shifting Others.
One of those places is Bennett, a town at the northern end
of the Elder Hills—a town surrounded by the wild country.
Now efforts are being made to resettle Bennett as a
community where humans and Others live and work together. A
young female police officer has been hired as the deputy to
a Wolfgard sheriff. A deadly type of Other wants to run a
human-style saloon. And a couple with four foster
children—one of whom is a blood prophet—hope to find acceptance.
But as they reopen the stores and the professional offices
and start to make lives for themselves, the town of Bennett
attracts the attention of other humans looking for profit.
And the arrival of the outlaw Blackstone Clan will either
unite Others and humans...or bury them all.