Written in Red by Anne Bishop – a Review

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Anne Bishop is one of my favorite authors.  No matter what she writes, she never fails to totally hook me into the story.  Written in Red is the start of her new series, The Others.  I loved this book, so well written, with such wonderful characters, and there are a lot.  The storyline was fun, exciting, and tense, not to mention interesting. 

Description:
In a thrilling new fantasy series, enter a world inhabited by the Others, unearthly entities—vampires and shape-shifters among them—who rule the Earth and whose prey are humans.

As a cassandra sangue, or blood prophet, Meg Corbyn can see the future when her skin is cut—a gift that feels more like a curse. Meg’s Controller keeps her enslaved so he can have full access to her visions. But when she escapes, the only safe place Meg can hide is at the Lakeside Courtyard—a business district operated by the Others.

Shape-shifter Simon Wolfgard is reluctant to hire the stranger who inquires about the Human Liaison job. First, he senses she’s keeping a secret, and second, she doesn’t smell like human prey. Yet a stronger instinct propels him to give Meg the job. And when he learns the truth about Meg and that she’s wanted by the government, he’ll have to decide if she’s worth the fight between humans and the Others that will surely follow.

Review:

Written in Red is a fantastic start to a new series, set in a world run by The Others.  They consist of non humans, such as shapeshifters, elementals, vampires, in a paranormal story unlike anything we have seen before.   Humans learn to live in the lands allowed to them by the Others, who control everything, not mention put the fear in the hearts of humans, who do not follow the rules.  The Others all live in an area that is their own, within different parts of the world.  This story follows the Lakeside Courtyard, run by their leader & our hero, Simon Wolfgard, a wolf shapeshifter. 

But the story starts out with our heroine Meg Corbyn, who is running away from a secret life, and ends up in the Courtyard, where few humans are allowed.  Meg applies for a job as a Human Liason, to help with the mail.  Simon smells something different about Meg, but reluctantly gives her the job, on probation.  He knows she is running from something, and is determined to find out what it is. 

Meg, though in dangerous territory, finds it safer to be with the non-human Others, where she thinks she cannot be found.  Along the way, she must face all the distrust from various shifters, such as wolves, crows, vampires, grizzles, and others.   But Meg is a sweet girl, and you can’t help but like her, and root for her.  The Others begin to like Meg, and though they watch her, they start trusting her.  Meg does well to clean up the mess at the mail office, and starts her own way of dealing with each of the different types of Others. 

As in most stories, there are villains, and Bishop excels at creating these villains.  The Controller, whom we hear of, but do not see much of in this book, is the main villain of the series.  Asia Crane has had eyes on Simon, but keeps getting rebuffed. Now she turns her eyes on Meg, as she wants to find out who and why is she here with the others. and use Meg to make some money.   

This is such a great story, in a totally different world.  We get to meet all the Others, including the vampires and the Elementals, besides the shapeshifters.  Bishop has created a wonderful cast of characters that bring this story to life.  From Tess, who is a powerful member of the Others, yet no one knows what she is, just that she can be very very dangerous & scary, so never get her mad.   Tess, despite her early distrust of Meg, does take her somewhat under her wing.  You get to meet the wolves, and the crows, as well as a grizzly, and you will get to love them all, and watch them come to love Meg.  I loved meeting Winter, and her sisters Air and Spring.  So powerful, so dangerous, and feared.  But Meg somehows befriends them, as she has most of the Others.  My most favorite character turns out to be Sam, the young wolf pup,  that Simon takes care of.  Meg manages to help bring Sam out of his shell, that happened when he saw his mother get killed, and both learn to love each other.  Meg will do anything to protect Sam, and watching their friendship is so much fun, and beautiful.

Simon discovers that Meg is a cassandra sanque, and is running away from the man who imprisoned her, the Controller.  What is a casasndra sanque?… a blood prophet, who must cut themselves to see the future.  Meg is valuable to the Controller and he wants her back at any cost. 

This leads into an exciting story, where Meg’s life is in danger, and the Others band together to help her. It was a wild exciting last 1/3 of the book.

This again was such a fantastic book, from start to finish. I enjoyed learning about the Others, their disdain for humans, yet their learning to care about Meg; seeing all the different types of others, whether it be shape-shifters, vampires, elementals, etc.  Learning how the human police force, understands the need to keep the peace, and work with the Others to protect all humans, which becomes all too real near the end.  I cannot say enough about this book, as well as Anne Bishop.  I marvel how she comes up with these ideas, and makes it so real.  Bravo Anne, I loved Written in Red and cannot wait for the next book.

Reviewed by Barb

Copy provided by Publisher