In this thrilling and suspenseful fantasy, set in the world of the New York Times bestselling Others series, Vicki DeVine and her lodger, the shapeshifter Aggie Crowe, stumble onto a dead body . . . and find themselves enmeshed in danger and dark secrets.

Human laws do not apply in the territory controlled by the Others–vampires, shapeshifters, and paranormal beings even more deadly. And this is a fact that humans should never, ever forget . . .

After her divorce, Vicki DeVine took over a rustic resort near Lake Silence, in a human town that is not human controlled. Towns like Vicki’s have no distance from the Others, the dominant predators that rule most of the land and all of the water throughout the world. And when a place has no boundaries, you never really know what’s out there watching you.

Vicki was hoping to find a new career and a new life. But when her lodger, Aggie Crowe–one of the shapeshifting Others–discovers a dead body, Vicki finds trouble instead. The detectives want to pin the man’s death on her, despite the evidence that nothing human could have killed the victim. As Vicki and her friends search for answers, things get dangerous–and it’ll take everything they have to stay alive.

My Review:

There’s a famous saying that “Mother Nature always bats last, and she always bats 1.000.” And that’s true even if homo sapiens is no longer around to see her step up to the plate. But what if, instead of Mother Nature, or Gaia, or the workings of chemistry, biology and physics on the environment, instead of working, let’s call it, translucently, had an actual batter in the on deck circle all the time, one who regularly stepped up to the plate whenever homo sapiens screwed up.

Which we do. Frequently and often.

In some ways, that’s the premise of the world of The Others. In the earlier books of this series, starting with Written in Red, we see a world where nature is personified by beings known as “The Others”, where homo sapiens is not the dominant species. A fact that some members of the species keep trying to forget, and with predictable results.

Instead of doing whatever we want to the environment and the planet, the Others have very strict limits on what humans can do, where they can do it, and how much damage they can do. When those limits are exceeded, the Others slap humans down. Hard. Deadly hard.

At the end of Etched in Bone, the Others decide that humans need to be taught a lesson. Again. Lake Silence is the first story that takes place after those events, in a world where the human population has been deliberately decimated, and where the Others have become much more obvious about their true ownership of this world and everything in it.

Vicki DeVine has come to Lake Silence, one of the small Finger Lakes in what we call upstate New York, to try to make a go of the slightly run down rustic resort that she received in her divorce from Yorick Dane and his Vigorous Appendage.

Things are going reasonably well, in spite of the many restrictions that the Others have placed on what Vicki can and cannot do with the buildings on her resort, until Vicki’s one and only acknowledged tenant, Aggie Crow, brings home a “squooshy” eyeball. To eat. And that’s when Vicki discovers that she isn’t as finished with Yorick as she has hoped, and that the Others that most humans try to think of as “far away” and “out there” are, in fact, “in here”, or at least in Lake Silence. And that the Lake and all of its surroundings are, in fact, “out there” where the Others control everything.

Just because you don’t believe in Mother Nature, doesn’t mean that she doesn’t believe in you.

Escape Rating A: A friend wondered what there was to say about the world of the Others now that Meg, the heroine of the first part of the series, seemed to be well on her way to living a normal life including an eventual HEA.

It turns out there’s quite a lot to say, and quite a lot of very interesting characters to say it with. (I always thought that “reading crack” was somehow embedded in the pages of Meg’s story – and whatever it is, its still here).

The humans in this story are all too recognizably human, with the species’ ability to stick their heads in the sand and ignore anything that doesn’t conform to their desired reality, and with the all-too-frequent venality and willingness of some people to cheat whenever possible.

I did sometimes find myself wondering if the species might have developed somewhat differently in a world where humans were demonstrably not the apex predator, but that wouldn’t make for half so interesting a story or for characters who are so easily recognizable.

Vicki DeVine serves the same purpose in Lake Silence that Meg did in Written in Red, even though she comes from a completely different perspective. And unlike Meg, Vicki herself is not merely human, but garden-variety human. She has no special powers. She’s just a good person whose been repeatedly hurt, and she’s open minded and likeable. And the Others like her.

Vicki doesn’t know it but the resort she owns is meant to be a kind of “halfway house” for Others who want to learn to blend into the human world. Not because being human is considered better, because it’s not. But because the Others need to keep a closer eye on the humans in their human controlled enclaves, especially after the fiasco that culminated in Etched in Bone. And because humans, with their useful opposable thumbs, have invented some really cool stuff that some Others like to use, particularly those who live closer to humans, like the Sanguinati (read vampires) and the various animal shifters, like the Crowgard, Beargard and Panthergard who live near Lake Silence.

So when Vicki’s ex starts trying to dislodge her from her place on Lake Silence, the Others gather their forces, first to figure out what is really going on under the surface, and second to protect their friend and eliminate their enemies. By any means necessary.

There’s just enough humor to get the reader over the serious dark patches in the story, and there are plenty of both. That so many of the Sanguinati have become either lawyers or accountants, and just how good they are at professional bloodletting as well as the other kind provides no end of delight.

There’s something about the world of The Others that draws the reader in at the very beginning, and just doesn’t let go. Part of the appeal in this particular book is the character of Vicki DeVine, who has been wounded so badly and yet is still doing her best to get back on her feet and live her life. She is a character who starts out the story very small, but begins to grow into her place as the story progresses. It’s going to be fun watching her journey as the series continues.