Shiarra has been captured by Max at the end of the last
book. It’s her worst nightmare, Royce’s worst enemy is now focused on her and
has her in his clutches to use and abuse. Again. Not only is he sadistically
trying to hurt Royce by proxy and proving his power over her, but he also
intends to use her to undermine his old enemy.
Shiarra needs to escape – but she isn’t the only captive;
her best friend and a lot of innocents are also held by the human trafficking
Max. And Royce is limited in how much he can directly offer help without
massive political fall out. Shiarra may need to make some dangerous alliances
to ensure her – and everyone else’s – freedom.
This book had a lot of action and a lot of mental
ruminations in Shiarra’s head – and I think it all worked because this book
closed a chapter; a long running thread of the books has been closed and ended.
I actually think the way it was ended was somewhat anticlimactic, but on the
whole it worked – it worked because the build up, the action and Shiarra’s
thoughts all brought things to a close. Shiarra seems far more resolved about
Royce, there is no suggestion of the ending element (behold my desperate
attempts to avoid spoilers!) persisting after this book.
Instead we have new hints – the wars that have been ravaging the supernatural community but have largely gone over Shiarra’s head – including the hostility between the werewolves she knows and Royce. And, of course, the consequences of this book – because it’s clear there will be some. The old has been really neatly closed and a whole new paradigm is now begging to be explored – I’m looking forward to that.
I am always wary whenever I read a plot line that
involves the protagonist – especially a female protagonist – being captured and
held at the mercy of a cruel, sadistic monster. It’s common to delve into the
realms of torture porn and commoner still for us to enter the realm of sexual
abuse and rape. I was braced for it to be graphic – and it wasn’t.
It wasn’t downplayed. Max is sadistic and cruel, a human trafficker,
a slaver, who keeps a stable of people to be abused and fed upon as well as
selling victims to other vampires for food. He definitely demands his stable
both feed him blood and, likely, rapes them. He abuses Shiarra, he torments her,
he forces her to obey him – but the cruelty was not gratuitous even when it was
bad, it wasn’t lingered on and there was very little sexual aspect (one of the
elements I didn’t like is Shiarra actually taking that as some kind of comment
on her attractiveness – for a rather unpleasant “I haven’t been raped, oh my
self-esteem”). The main aspect there was Max feeding on her which is very
arousing in this world – but that is shown as horrifying. The fact that his
fangs can get Shiarra all hot and bothered is something Shiarra finds repellent
which contrasts so well with a genre load of supernatural sexiness. Yes he has
fangs that can push anyone’s buttons and make them desperate for sex despite
their normal wishes or whether they even want him – and that is a terrifying,
horrible thing.
I have to admit, I spent a lot of this book being very
very tense and waiting for Shiarra to do something that would make me break my
tablet. Shiarra does not have a good history when it comes to making good
decisions. I kept waiting for her to charge in on her own or to decide that
Royce was evil after all, or to ignore the advice she’s been given or avoid her
bodyguard or go back into danger rather than get help… It was an odd tension. A
book that can create that level of on-the-edge-of-your-seat tension is usually
pretty good – but does it count if it’s caused by the protagonist’s history of
utter incompetence?
Which may have finally been broken! Yes, despite numerous
opportunities and my constant worry, Shiarra was (largely) sensible in this
book. It’s probably pretty sad that saying that a main character is largely
sensible is high praise, but this is a genre where Spunky Agency abounds –
especially for characters who don’t have any special powers. For some reason,
the less woo-woo a character has, the more likely they decide arm wrestling
vampires is such a wonderful idea. Shiarra is defiant when she can be, but
sensible enough to know where the limits are. She’s determined and strong, but
not reckless and foolhardy. She takes the chances she is given, even if it’s
hard to do. She is loyal and caring for her friend and fellow prisoners – but not
fool enough to let that loyalty overcome all common sense despite her desperate
desire to do so. She does make deals and trust people who are unknown or very
untrustworthy but this comes down to being in an extreme situation and needing
to hang on any branch she can – and maybe she could turn on them later but that’s
clearly not Shiarra and pretty understandable.
Shiarra has also developed a level of ruthlessness that
means she sometimes accepts evil has to happen for them to win this war – it’s
not the completely out there “ends justifies the means” morality, but she does
accept that sometimes the lesser of two evils is the way to go. But she does
still see the evil in doing things like altering someone’s memory – again, this
genre has a lot of mind control from vampires being seen as a rather cool or
nifty thing, or a common tool. Having it presented as an unconscionable
violation is nice to see.
Gideon may be an interesting character depending on what
develops – and the first LGBT character in the series who isn’t evil. Possibly.
Of course, as a necromancer he is considered by many to be inherently evil and
he has a track record of evil – so maybe “isn’t evil” is a step too far – but
it’s entered my “wait and see” category rather than my “eye roll and snark”
category, which is a step up.
Max may be a POC, one of his stable certainly is (though
he’s named, it’s not much else) and we have Soo-Jin who is Korean and
interesting. She has a fashion sense, a past and a personality but a lot more
waits to be explored – on first glance I like her and think she’ll be a great
friend for Shiarra. She’s also supernatural and a big thing is made of her
hiding it – I guessed within 3 seconds of her appearing though (her fill name
didn’t help). We could use some more development of her supernatural nature
which is pretty narrow at the moment. We also saw Francisco, a Black vampire
and apparently a major force – I hope we’ll be seeing more of him in the
future.
For me, this book did the job, neatly, efficiently, with
no problems and considerable amount of fun. Shiarra has been solidified as a
character – which is pretty much the what these first few books in the Others
series has been – Shiarra finding her place among the Others and accepting it.
Shiarra has grown from the terrified figure in book one, gone through her
reckless angry phase and is now relatively competent, secure and cautious. Her
evolution has reached a nice plateau and her connections to the other
characters are now very much laid out and stable. The sides have been cast, the
battle lines drawn, the world laid out - now the next chapter can begin – I’m
really looking forward to it.
