(The odd name comes from the strange shape-shifter denizens of the village.) The terms of the lease for The Jumble are strict any owner or user must adhere to the conditions set out by the terra indigene. In a divorce settlement with her sleazy, emotionally-abusive ex-husband, she received “The Jumble,” a vacation rental property on a lake in the village of Sproing. In this book, we meet Victoria (“Vicki”) DeVine, a 30-year-old human who shows sufficient respect for Others to be accepted, and more importantly, protected by them. Fans were worried when the author announced that Etched in Bone was the last book that would take place in the city of Lakeside, but not the last taking place in this particular world the author created. Readers followed what happened through the events taking place in Lakeside, where humans and Others mixed in a unique situation facilitated by the wonderful characters of the werewolf Simon Wolfgard and the cassandra sangue Meg Corbyn.

This upset the harmony of the world and led to a great culling of humans by unhappy Elders, who are the primal, dangerous, and most powerful forms of the terra indigene. In the first series, a political movement- Humans First and Last (HFL), tried to challenge the hegemony of the Others and “take back the land” (which of course was never theirs in the first place). There is also a third sort of in-between group with extra-sensory perceptiveness, including the cassandra sangue or blood prophets – females who can see visions of the future after self-mutilation or reading cards and Intuits, humans with enhanced instincts that enable them to sense danger. These Others include shapeshifters (such as werewolves), vampires, “elementals,” and “harvesters,” inter alia. This is the beginning of a new paranormal series set in the same world of Bishop’s “Others” series, a world mostly divided into humans and the terra indigene, commonly known as The Others.

Lake silence anne bishop