Review – Murder of Crows (The Others, Book 2) by Anne Bishop (5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: 368 pages
Publisher: Roc Hardcover
Release Date: March 4, 2014
ISBN-13: 978-0451465269
Stand Alone or Series: 2nd book in The Others series
Source: Borrowed from Library
Rating: 5/5 stars

This was the second book in The Others series by Bishop. This was a wonderful addition to The Others series. It is an awesome world with fabulous characters and an interesting plot. This is one of my favorite paranormal/urban fantasy type series out there right now.

Meg is settling into her new role as human liaison for the terra indigene of the Lakeside Courtyard. Things are going well until Meg has a vision of blood and black feathers in the snow. When Simon Wolfgard finds out about her visions he is worried about an upcoming attack. It seems that there are two new and very addictive drugs on the street, their presence is causing a lot of tension between humans and the terra indigene. As Meg’s urge to tell prophecy grows more and more urgent she can’t help but wonder what sort trouble is going to hit the Lakeside region.

I love this series. I love all of the crazy different types of terra indigene, I love the world in general and the interesting alternate history that is shown here.

The book is set in the Midwest region of the US. However the terra indigene lived here long before humanity did, the terra indigene allow the humans to live in small communities and have trade agreements set up with them. The Lakeside Courtyard is one of the few communities of terra indigene that is trying to work with humans and integrate humans into their community.

Meg is still struggling with her abilities as a cassandra sangue or blood prophet. She needs to occasionally cut herself and give prophecies or the visions will drive her insane. Given her background, Meg has never really been allowed to live her own life as a human. She is still learning a lot about what is normal for a human and what is not. It is interesting to watch her try to determine what is a “normal” human reaction when she is living in the midst of a bunch of non-humans. These leads to a lot of hilarious situations throughout the book.

Simon Wolfgard is the other main lead in the book. He leads the Lakeside Courtyard terra indigene. Simon is an excellent friend to Meg, but he has trouble understanding humans as well. It is very fun to watch him and Meg try to figure out how to interact and be normal with each other.

We learn a lot more background on the cassandra sangue in this book. We also learn a lot more about the terra indigene and get to meet some of the broader terra indigene community.

There is an excellent plot here, once the police and the terra indigene figure out that some of the unsettling recent events were caused because of an addictive drug they need to figure out both where the drug is coming from and how to stop its distribution. Driving the plot forward is the fact that if these drug distribution is not stopped the terra indigene as a whole have threatened to destroy the Midwest. And they can do it too….if you have elementals on your side and other forces of nature there isn’t anything you can’t destroy.

The writing is excellently done and flows so well. This is one of those books where you just keep reading and reading and don’t realize how fast time has passed. The book is incredibly well balanced; there is excellent world-building, wonderfully engaging characters, and a very well done plot. I just loved everything about this book. It takes a genre that is pretty full (urban fantasy/paranormal) and twists it on its head making it something special and new and interesting.

Overall I just loved everything about this book. I highly recommend it to fans of urban fantasy/paranormal books. The world is fantastic, the characters are engaging, and it is just such a fascinating story to read. I can’t wait to read the next book in this series.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
– 100 Books in a Year Reading Challenge