Wild Country

The World of the Others #2

by Anne Bishop

In this powerful and exciting fantasy set in the world of the New York Times bestselling Others series, humans and the shape-shifting Others will see whether they can live side by side...without destroying one another.

There are ghost towns in the world—places where the humans were annihilated in retaliation for the slaughter of the shape-shifting Others.

One of those places is Bennett, a town at the northern end of the Elder Hills—a town surrounded by the wild country. Now efforts are being made to resettle Bennett as a community where humans and Others live and work together. A young female police officer has been hired as the deputy to a Wolfgard sheriff. A deadly type of Other wants to run a human-style saloon. And a couple with four foster children—one of whom is a blood prophet—hope to find acceptance.
 
But as they reopen the stores and the professional offices and start to make lives for themselves, the town of Bennett attracts the attention of other humans looking for profit. And the arrival of the Blackstone Clan, outlaws and gamblers all, will uncover secrets…or bury them.

Genres: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, Vampires, Shapeshifters, Fiction, Adult

492 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 5, 2019

About the author

Anne Bishop lives in upstate New York where she enjoys gardening, music, and writing dark, romantic stories. She is the author of over twenty novels, including the award-winning Black Jewels Trilogy. She has written a new series, the Others, which is an urban dark fantasy with a bit of a twist.

Crawford Award (2000)




Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[carol. · Rating 2 out of 5]

The short version: Wild Country is All The Books in The Others series chopped then tossed together in a fruit salad. In other words, there's nothing that's new, but presentation is everything; it feels a bit fresher, more streamlined, and better paced. I've been trying to figure out if I could recommend people just read this book and skip the rest. Maybe. 

Given that this contains All The Details from prior books,* I'll note that it fixes many of the shortcomings, particularly those in plot. Since I adored mail-delivering ponies, I didn't mind the endless details about such in Book One (Written in Red), but I don't blame people who do. All of that is shortened here. The villain scenario--believe me, I am spoiling nothing here--is essentially the same as in Book One to Five (I can't speak to Six, since I skipped it). Bishop doesn't believe in shades of grey, and inevitably her antagonists are greedy, abusive, misogynist, human-first people who kick kittens and puppies for fun. Non-people are never villains.

Narrative viewpoint wanders. It's limited third person, skipping from head to head so that Bishop can pretend to build some tension between the forces of Nature and those who wish to challenge/exploit it. I, being the impatient, shallow person that I am--get to some people-punishing, please--skipped the viewpoint of the Bad People. Plus, gross.

One of the things that keeps me coming back to the series is the idea of active, animate environmental reclamation. I read a LOT of apocalypse stories, ranging from disease, zombie, nuclear, environmental, but only Anne Bishop connects monsters with environment repair and envisions a nature that actively reclaims civilization. Of course, that's as far as her world-building goes. It's actually one of the most poorly thought-out worlds I've ever read that has made it past the self-published stage.

Bishop actually cracked me up because in the prologue, she thanked a number of people for their help with animal information. I'm not sure what 'information' they gave her that couldn't have been found in a first-grade primer. I mean, there was a canary that ate bird seed, some fighting dogs that went feral, some horses in a corral and some cattle that were killed. And two puppies. The rest of the time she explicitly states (almost word-for-word) that the terra indigene, while modeling themselves after a species of animal, are not actually that species, and thus have needs that species does not share. So I'm not sure what help her friends gave. That new puppies should have a crate? Get the runs if they eat raw antelope?

I wish people 'helping' her would have said, 'Anne, hey. How can you have localized computer networks with email and fax machines after the terra indigene wiped out 75% of humanity? How come you still have DVD players with new movies made by the terra indigene? Where are all the damn peeps mining your cobalt and platinum, and whose assembling your circuit boards in a sterile environment? But since you tell me you are limiting gas and there aren't very many people, and food resources are a little limited, where does the electricity to run the computers come from? And don't try to sell me an electric dam, because that still brings us back to a manufactured metals problem. And why are your Inuit people giving a damn about who the property heirs are for Bennett? Weren't the residents killed because they killed a bunch of terra indigene?  Why are the Inuit worrying about possessions for the next-of-kin after a world-wide disaster? Don't you have a food shortage? Isn't 75% of the population wiped out? And where did all the people come from so fast to settle Bennett (see pop reduction)... but apparently none of the Blackstone Clan, that their numbers rival the terra indigene?"

Zombies are easier, really.

Ignoring all that, there's a sorta problematic thing with a person who likely has Down, who the wolves call a 'skippy' ('Skippy,' was a mentally challenged terra in an earlier book), and it's bizarre, given Bishop's other series, that there's an aside with a woman who likes "non-vanilla sex" (this is explicitly said) ends up... well. Not with a happy ending. And of course, there's the general thing that gender roles are pretty much 1950s, except gay men are cool. 

So, flip the little switch in your brain that has to do with logic--just like you do in a zombie movie--and go along with it. Try to ignore the fact that Bishop's world logic isn't consistent. Just go with it. It's kind of a fun tale, lots of ups and downs, a weird sort of frontier theme happening, and sort of happy ever-afters, although I gotta say, I do think Bishop wasn't very kind to Virgil. I might buy the e-book version--if it's on sale. 







*Seriously. A non-exhaustive list includes--and do you really think these are spoilers?--and all of these are brief: Air on a pony, "speak prophet and I will listen," review of what happens to male Cassandra sangres, stocking grocery stores, review of how email works, watching movies, reading books, color-changing hair, pizza delivery (because post-apocalypse, natch), train-riding, howling, encountering Elders, jokes about eating people, eating people, Inuit spidey-senses, women embarrassed by naked shapeshifting men.

[Corina · Rating 4 out of 5]

UPDATE 2020 - I got sucked into this world last week and it's so hard to read something outside of THE OTHERS. But that's actually the best sign of a great series, when I don't want to read anything else for over a week. I'm experiencing a mini book hangover - sigh.

___________________________________



Getting a new book by Anne Bishop is becoming one of my most highly anticipated things of the year. When I started reading her The Others series exactly two years ago, December of 2016, I had no idea how much this series is going to mean to me. I just recently binge read the first five books again, and loved them as much as the first time around.

Wild Country is a kind of continuation of the original five books. Because of that I wouldn’t recommend jumping into this book without reading the other books first. Start with Written in Red.

Now even though I love her books, especially this series, Wild Country wasn’t my favorite and it’s easy to pinpoint why.

In the first five books Meg and Simon were pretty much the main characters. And I realized quickly that I need at least one or two main characters that I can really connect with. Characters that carry the story, that are the center a novel is built around.

All of this doesn’t mean that I didn’t have fun reading Wild Country. I loved getting back to one of my most beloved series. lI actually devoured the book!!

I just would have liked it done differently. Because Wild Country was a story told by many different cast members. Even though all were important to the story, this kind of style actually prevented me from really connecting with a specific character – if that makes any sense.

The next thing that worries me is that I don’t really know what the author has planned for the future. Her last novel Lake Silence seems to be a standalone in THE OTHERS series. And right now I don’t know if she will continue her story arc in Bennett or move on.

I would love to get back to the people in Bennett. One book isn’t enough to really get to know them all, especially since most of them were new introductions and with Lakeside we had 5 books to really get to know the entire cast.

I’m also interested to see what other connections and relationships are being built between the terra indigene and humans. These mixed groups of characters are something I enjoy the most. How everyone adapts, how they learn from one another and build friendships on trust, kindness and support – even if the odds are against them.

Because what I love the most about this series, is that it’s all about good vs evil. It’s one of these stories that will never grow old, and Anne Bishop has a wonderful and heart-warming way of spinning stories that I love to devour each and every time.

ARC generously provided in exchange for an honest review.

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[Mimi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Initial reaction:

Not good and yet I'm looking forward to the next book. It's complicated... not this series, but the reason I'm drawn to it and keep on returning to it even though it just isn't good.

More on this later, when I sort it out.

* * * * *

Now that I've had a few days to sort it out, I've come to the conclusion that my attachment to these books is quite simple, really. I only like one thing and that one thing is karmic retribution, and this series has it in strides. By the end of each book, you are guaranteed a bloody, satisfying ending in which decency comes out on top and evil doers get what they deserve--eaten, as nature and the universe intended. Many of them die in horrific ways and all of them are satisfying on a very basic level.

There are no complexities here. You never have to worry about nuance or depth or lack of depth or shades of gray or moral ambiguity or finding yourself in a tough spot when you're reading. You're relieved of the burden of having to figure out where you stand on questionable things because "good" and "evil" are clear cut and defined in ways that leave no room for discussion. If one happens to get eaten by nature, then one definitely had it coming because nature is never wrong. Simple as that.

That's too basic for what I normally like in my fiction, but I put up with it here because the ways in which the revenge-by-nature or nature-with-a-vengeance arc is played out is so satisfying. It fills a void that other, better written, more dubious fiction don't or can't.

I mean, where in fiction do violent, openly racist (specie-ist?) characters consistently get what they deserve (eaten)?

The moment a shady character shows up on the page causing trouble, you know that character will suffer and die by the end of the book. It's only a matter of how and how bloody it will be. Mauled by wolves? Mauled by bears? Mauled by panthers? Drained by vampires, pecked by crows, harvested by a harvestor or--everyone's personal favorite--torn to pieces by an elder and left for scavengers?

However they die, they die for good. It's kind of ghoulish, but in a fun way.

I made the mistake of calling this series "cozy" and a friend read Written in Red (#1) on my recommendation thinking it's an actual cozy like a cozy mystery. She came back, just kind of stared at me, and then said, "I don't think you know what 'cozy' means."

Me: *scoffing* "Of course I do." [I didn't, apparently.]

Bewildered friend: "People get ripped apart and eaten in this book. In just the first few chapters!"

Me: "And they deserved it." *failing to see what the issue was here*

BF: "That's not cozy. That's not what cozy is."

Me: *narrowing eyes* "But it should be, yeah?"

BF: "NO."

And then the discussion veered off into what was and wasn't cozy and how I should read actual cozies to see what they're like.

Me: "Do bad people get devoured in cozy books?"

BF: "Nope."

Me: "Then they're not very cozy, are they?"

BF: *showing signs of mental hair pulling*

I did end up trying a few categorically cozy mysteries to see what they're like as the friend requested. And? They're fine, just not for me. Too tamed and not enough wholesale devouring for my taste (puns maybe intended).

This series is kind of difficult to sum up using existing paranormal books and series as examples or descriptions because it's in a class of its own. However, if you've read one book, you've pretty much read them all.

* * * * *

Okay, now onto this book.

It takes place in the town of Bennett, where a wolf pack was massacred by humans in an attempted land grab and where the apocalypse officially "kicked off." The story opens after the apocalyptic events of Marked in Flesh (#4) and the timeline runs parallel to Etched in Bone (#5). It runs up to Meg's kidnapping and recovery and then breaks off to deal with trouble brewing within the town.

Bennett is right in the middle of the wild county. There's a small farming village close by, but the land is extremely isolated from the rest of the human population and the elders live just on the other side of the invisible border. A group of sanguinati led by Tolya and two wolves, Virgil and Kane who are the only survivors of the slain pack, take on the difficult task of resettling the town by gradually letting select humans come in to work for them.

Most of the people they let in are skilled, hardworking people who really need the jobs and a fresh start. But then there's the Blackstone clan who are a family of intuit swindlers and grifters; they're looking for a fresh start as well, but they're not inclined to share the town. They head to Bennett thinking they could case the area and then push out the Others for control of the town, with the idea of turning it into a paradise for more people like them.

Things... don't go as planned. Lots of people and Others are killed. The ending is a bloodbath, literally, though not as intense as the ones in previous books. The plotting could have been tighter to ratchet up the tension, about 200 pages could have been cut to quicken the pace, and a couple of the minor character-centric subplots could have been discarded to keep the focus on the action leading up to the showdown between the Blackstones and the Others.

Some familiar characters are back: Jesse Walker and her son Tobias, both intuits from the farming village; Barbara Ellen, assistant vet and Micheal Debaney's sister; John Wolfgard from the Lakeside bookstore.

Lots of new characters are introduced: Jana, the first and only female cop in this whole world (no joke); Abigail, another intuit who can "read" gemstones and a former Blackstone; Joshua Painter, an orphan raised by panthers; Saul Panthergard, one of Joshua's adoptive relatives; the Gott family; the Hua-Stone family; Scythe, a harvestor (like Tess).

This is the first book in which we get a sex scene between a human and an Other (sanguinati). The pairing is an interesting one. The characters have a working relationship prior to getting together, and much to my surprise, there's no awkwardness between them afterward.

This is also the first book in which we get to see a same-sex relationship. It's never been mentioned before, not even briefly, so I just thought it was the author's choice to not take on subject matter she wasn't comfortable writing. But here in this book, we see a gay couple who have adopted 4 children, 3 Others and a blood prophet (unbeknownst to them), and are looking to start a new life together in the wild country, far away from judgmental humans. (Yes... even in the post-apocalypse... *long suffering sigh*)

What's interesting about this development is it's some of the humans, not the Others, who take issue with same-sex relationships, although they don't voice their objection as Bennett is an Other-controlled town. The Others are actually fine with the 2 dads and their 4 kids. They only make a fuss at first because one of the kids is a young, untrained blood prophet and they thought the couple stole the kids.

Another first for the series is having a minor character with Down Syndrome, but since she's not a POV character (yet?), we only get to read about what the main characters think and say about her. Once they make the connection between her and Skippy (back at Meg's office in Lakeside), the Wolves look after her as one of their own.

One last first for the series: first female cop. Jana is the first woman to graduate from the police academy and become the first female police officer ever, but she can't get hired in any human-controlled areas because, you know, sexism and misogyny. She has to go all the way out to the wild country if she wants a job. This is a world that's vaguely technologically advanced--there are cell phones and internet--and yet Jana is the first woman to become a cop in the history of humanity. (*long suffering sigh to the power of infinity*)

And that pretty much wraps up this book.

* * * * *

Cross-posted at https://covers2covers.wordpress.com/2...

[Jilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Believe it or not, Jilly has a few weaknesses that aren't chocolate.. I know, it's shocking. But true! One of these is forgetting names and another is being "directionally challenged". So, when you give me a book that is set two neighboring towns - but different from the others in the series - and then bring in some people that we should remember - and then have the timeline of it being before the last book written and during one of the books a few years back......
Jilly is confused.



But, what I did get was a pretty entertaining story.
The book was set in a town that is basically a giant murder scene because the last inhabitants had been killed and eaten by Others after they killed a bunch of wolves in one of the past books. So, now they need more food humans to get the town going again. Who volunteers?


Who wouldn't?

Two of the main characters are Jana, a human cop, and Virgil, a wolf-shifter sheriff. Jana couldn't find a job as a cop anywhere else because of being a woman, so they put her in the most dangerous position available. Makes sense. Little lady can't cry sexism if she gets eaten. That''ll teach her.

Virgil has a tragic past and really hates humans, but he finds himself liking Jana. He realizes that she must be part wolverine because of how fierce she is for a human, even though that isn't biologically possible. Eventually all of the Others are calling her "the wolverine" and it's pretty funny. Virgil will melt your heart even though he can be an ass-hat sometimes. His interactions with Jana's puppy are adorable.



Since the town is opening up to human inhabitants a lot of people are headed that way, and not all of them have good motives. One guy has a gang of murderers, robbers, rapists, and thieves that he is gathering to take over the town. They are planning to kill all of the Others.... you know, since that worked out so well in past books.


Yeah, these idiots decided to try and give the cat a pill again. It will definitely end better this time.

The weakness in this book is that there are too many stories going on at once instead of making the main focus Jana and Virgil. If the book was styled more like the Meg & Simon books, it would have worked better. But, there were POV's and side-stories flying everywhere. It was like a case of ADD, moving around so much that you never got to pay real attention to one thing.



There is also a trigger warning from me: there is a torture and rape that happens in this one. I was angry about that because it felt like the author almost justified it by making this woman a bitch with loose morals. It bothered me that the woman was portrayed as a "slut" and then the mood was that she got what she deserved. Nobody deserves that. NOBODY. So, that pissed me off.

The other weakness in the story is that the big show-down seemed wrong. I can't explain too much without spoiling, but the humans should never have been allowed to be in a power position. The Others certainly didn't allow any shenanigans before. They are kill-first, ask-questions later. So, it seemed unnecessary to have a bunch of characters die because of something that wasn't logical.
Yeah, Jilly, that made sense to anyone who hasn't read this book. You totally nailed it. *eye roll*

Still, if you like this series, you will probably like this one. It is full of action and has some of the cuteness of the animals-trying-to-human going on. I think it would be nice if the next book stayed here and let us get to know these characters better, but we'll see. The next one may be a prequel to Simon and Meg or something. You know how great prequels are!



Look, I think we can all agree that they both sucked.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars but I’m rounding up because I loved the rest of the series so much!

Wild Country is the book I was expecting when I first picked up Lake Silence so I was really excited that we were being given the chance to catch up with familiar faces from Prairie Gold and Bennett. Bennett's human population was wiped out in the war started by the Humans First and Last group, only the Intuit settlement at Prairie Gold survived but they're pretty cut off now that Bennett is a ghost town. Thanks to their connection to people at the Lakeside Courtyard the Elders have decided to allow Bennett to be resettled, but only as a terra indigene run town. Humans who can live in peace will be tolerated but anyone who crosses the line will be punished severely.

Timeline wise the first half of this book runs alongside events in Etched in Bone, we get to see the applicants accepted at the job fair arrive in Bennett and start work on creating a new community and we also get to see how the terra indigene living there react to the news of Meg's abduction. I still miss Meg and Simon as main characters but I loved getting the chance to catch up with familiar faces like Jesse, her son Tobias and the sanguinati town leader Tolya. I also really enjoyed getting to know Barbara Ellen (Michael's sister who went to Bennett to be the town vet) and the new human deputy Jana who arrived to work alongside the existing wolfgard Sheriff Virgil & deputy Kane.

It's been fun getting to see more of this world and how Others in different areas react to the humans they are now far more wary of thanks to the HFL. We also get to see how the blood prophets are settling in and continuing to learn about their own abilities which was something I was very happy about. I think my main issue with this book was that the humans were still able to cause so much trouble. The Others were on high alert thanks to some worrying prophecies, the Elders were watching and had clearly marked the boundaries where humans were allowed and where they weren't and yet we still had a group of humans able to sneak in and cause so much devastation.

I could have understood the Others laying a trap, letting the humans think their plan was working but I found it impossible to believe that the Elders didn't spot these encroachers on their territory and do something about them. The battle scenes could have been epic if it had been revealed that the Elders and the rest of the terra indigene had been working together to lay a huge trap but instead they were caught off guard and once again paid the price when many lives were lost. It was heartbreaking to read about and just didn't feel realistic to me considering everything that had gone before.

That battle came pretty close to ruining this story for me but I enjoyed the rest so much that I can't rate the book less than 4 stars. The truth is that I devoured all 7 books in about 9 days because I was so addicted to this series that I couldn't stop reading! That should give you an idea of how invested I became in this world and how skilful Ann Bishop is as a writer. It's been a long time since I last devoured a series like that and I know I'll be rereading the books regularly in the future. I'm not sure if Anne Bishop is done with this world but I really hope that she'll give us at least a few more books because I'm still not ready to say goodbye.

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah, a return to the world of the Others, where pack law rules and humans are no longer the dominant species. This tale takes place mainly in the town of Bennet, out in the wild country, and during the same time period as the last book in the Simon and Meg series. (Simon and Meg 💕💕) Sorry, fangirl moment over. I loved getting an all new cast of characters, with some of the same issues as before, and watching the world shift and grow. Virgil, Barbara Allen, Talaya, Jana, Tobias… so many great new characters to get to know 😊. I enjoyed the way relationships slowly unfolded and we slowly got to know the backstories and intricacies of this town much as we did the Lakeside Courtyard. This one turned pretty dark towards the end, so be sure to read trigger warnings if that’s an issue… for the most part it’s a lot of typical fluffy Other/human misunderstandings, but there were a few strong scenes. Overall a delightful read!

Trigger Warnings: sexual assault, rape, torture

[Sheyla ✎ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now we are talking!

Wild Country was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!! It was as good as reading a Meg and Simon's book! It had all the right elements to hook me from the very first chapter.

The timeline of Wild Country is around the time Crispin's brother shows up to the Lakeside Courtyard on Etched in Bone. We get to meet new characters and get to know more of the old ones too.

Jessie and Tobias Walker (mother and son) are Intuits. Jessie gets a "feel" for people while Tobias gets a "feel" for animals. They are both from Prairie Gold but are helping Tolya Sanguinatti, the Vampire who's in charge of Bennett. All humans from Bennett were killed by the Elders after the Human First and Last Movement attacked the Others and Tolya is in charge of repopulating it with the right kind of humans.

Jana Paniccia is hired to work with Bennett's sheriff, Virgil Wolfgard. Virgil has all the right reasons to hate the humans but he understands why they might need Jana. His idea of dealing with women is to put them in jail under a "me time" space.

Barb Debeny is in charge of the pets and the relocation of them to new homes. She has a happy personality and is very friendly, traits which can be confusing to the terra indigene especially to Virgil.

Wild Country was fabulous! I couldn't be happier that we are able to learn more about these characters. I love to read what was going through Tolya's head. Virgil and Jana's interaction with the puppy had me laughing at loud. I like the idea of Jana and Tobias together too. Jessi had so many important interactions, one I didn't see it coming. I wonder what will happen next with this mixed community of terra indigene and humans and who else shows up.

Wild Country was engaging, fast-paced, funny and sad at times. Definitely a winner!!

5/5 Fangs

Thank you Ace and NetGalley for providing me with a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.


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[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bishop masterfully writes a twisting tale that utterly ensnared me. White knuckle, riveting reading at its finest! Pulling the reader through the gambit of emotions, Wild Country and The Others Series truly delivers what I strive to find in every book I read.

I see a re-read of The Others series starting now!

I received this ARC copy of Wild Country from Berkley Publishing Group - Ace. This is my honest and voluntary review. Wild Country is set for publication March 5, 2019.

My Rating: 5 stars
Written by: Anne Bishop
Series: World of the Others, The (Book 2)
Hardcover: 496 pages
Publisher: Ace (March 5, 2019)
ISBN-10: 0399587276
ISBN-13: 978-0399587276
Genre: Fantasy | Dystopian

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Country-W...
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/wild...
Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/wild...

[♥Rachel♥ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bennett is one of the towns where the humans were obliterated by the Elders (the scariest of Others) since the Humans First and Last Group slaughtered many Others, and humans alike. The Elders took out a bunch of towns, and so they sit deserted, but Bennett is a place that Others claimed, a town along an important train route. They feel they must claim the town, so other nefarious human groups won’t come in, take advantage and settle. Unfortunately, Bennett’s still an attractive prospect to a human outlaw group, the Blackstone Clan; a group that hasn’t learned the importance of respecting the power of the Elders, or Others.

Tolya Sanguinati is the new mayor in charge, but Jesse Walker, an Intuit from Prairie Gold is an informal confidant and advisor to him. As an Intuit she has uncanny powers of intuition, providing Tolya helpful guidance in any decisions made about the town. I enjoyed their relationship, the trust between them even though she’s a human and he’s an Other. It’s decided that they need to start recruiting humans and Others to revive the town and fill various positions needed for a small town to function.

Jana just graduated from the Police Academy, but prejudices against women has made it hard for her to get a job. She’s recruited to work for the Bennett Police Department, and even though she knows there’s bound to be difficulties working with a Wolfgard police chief, she welcomes the opportunity. There’s no love lost between Virgil Wolfgard, the police chief, and humans. After all, his wolf-pack was slaughtered by the Humans First Last, so when Jana comes aboard it’s a bumpy road adjusting. It’s entertaining as they feel each other out, find out what to expect. There are difficulties, but Jana is up to the challenge. I was hoping there would be a romance between Jana and Virgil, there’s some definite chemistry there, IMO, but that was not to be in this installment. I still think there’s potential there, but as for now, it’s Jana and Tobias. .

The Blackstone’s are a nasty group, trying to bully their way into town and take over, their presence and threat had me on the edge of my seat. To be honest, I don’t know why the Tolya and the rest of the major players didn’t recognize them as more of a threat, especially with some of the warnings they got from Hope Wolfsong. There were a lot of losses, and I’m wondering how it’ll affect the relationships that had started to form before everything came to a head.

I’ve loved The Others since the beginning, and I’m delighted to get more from this world, even if it’s not Meg and Simon. I liked Lake Silence, the first spin-off book, but I enjoyed Wild Country even more. I think part of the reason is that there were several characters here that I’d already met and wanted more of in the previous books: Tolya Sanguinati, Jesse Walker, Tobias Walker, Rachel Wolfgard, and Barbara Ellen Debany, but I have to say two new characters: Jana and Virgil were my favorites in this installment. Watching the humans and Others of Bennett working together and forming bonds, learning to trust, and yes, start a romance (or three, yay!) is what I love most about this series. I can’t wait for the next one!

A copy was kindly provided by Ace via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Douglas Meeks · Rating 5 out of 5]

When it comes to "The Others" I find it next to impossible to stay unbiased since this is one of the most unique series being written today. The mix of characters and the way you are brought into the mindset of each of them draws you deep into these stories and you wish they would never end.

This book as with the previous one is in a new locality, Bennett is not 100% new since we have heard of it before in the original books. It is a bit less settled than any of the other books and while it is almost a "day-in-the-life" telling for a lot of the book, it is uniquely addicting (and sometimes humorous) to watch Others, humans, Intuits and the blood prophets all learn to work together.

As with most of these books there are always a few humans that think they can do what they want and that becomes part of the endgame plot and things are not exactly like you thought they might be since you somehow get the idea that all of these Others are something close to Superman and are invulnerable, you find that that is not exactly the case.

I had heard that this might be the last book at least for awhile and that the author was going to work on another series and while I hated to hear that, the ending to this does give a good place to stop and figure out where it goes from here, I hope it is not THE END but just a break to get a direction.

Bottom Line: This still remains one of the most entertaining, well written, captivating and unique series in urban fantasy and no list of superlatives really capture it for me. So 5 Stars since that is all I can give and still wish they have a class of books you could just label as Masterpiece Class and put those very few books like this one in it.

[Mlpmom (Book Reviewer) · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is almost nothing more than the dark almost creepy world that Bishop has created in The Others series.

With all the supernatural creatures we have all come to know, love and become fascinated with, but with a darker more sinister, no nonsense twist that is completely unique and one I completely adore.

Even though I miss Meg, Simon and all the gang from the original series so very much, I can't even begin to tell you how excited I was to know after the first book in the spin off, Lake Silence, was just as fascinating and fantastic as the original, I was to know we would be getting more.

Getting over that initial reservation of can Bishop really pull it off again, I can say with complete confidence and honesty, that why, yes, yes she can.

In fact, this is one of my most favorite books in the series to date. I just loved everything about it from the town, to the people, to the pack...just, it was so much of what I loved about the original but with whole new characters that were every bit as loveable as the original.

Truly this series is just getting better and Meg and Simon or no Meg and Simon, it truly is worth it to pick up and get a darker, more frightening taste of what The Others is all about.

*ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.*

[Carole (Carole's Random Life) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review can also be found at Carole's Random Life in Books.

This was another wonderful installment in a fantastic series. I have devoured each book in the series and eagerly look forward to each new installment. I had a digital review copy of this book but decided to go with the audiobook this time around and I think that it was a good choice. I was hooked by the story right away and had a hard time putting the book aside. I really enjoyed the experience of reading this book.

This book takes place at the same time as some of the events are happening in Etched in Bone. There are some mentions of familiar characters but for the most part, this book tells the story of a new group. This book is set in the small town of Bennett where the town is led by the Others but humans are settling in and living alongside them. It is a big adjustment for everyone, especially the town's Wolfguard sheriff and human officer.

I liked the characters in this book and really enjoyed the variety of the cast. Really, there is a little bit of everything in this book. There are regular humans, just about every kind of shifter that you could imagine, the vampire-like Sanguinati, blood prophets, and even a few close encounters with the Elders. There are even a couple of puppies worked into the mix which was a big plus for me.

I thought that this book was pretty exciting I was eager to learn how everything would come together. There are some scenes that are pretty action packed but I also liked the quieter scenes that illustrated how everyone was working together to make the community work. The only complaints that I really had would be the stupidity of some of the humans and the fact the pack of wild dogs had to be dealt with as they were.

This was the first time that I have had the chance to listen to the narration of Alexandra Harris. I thought that she did a great job with all of the different characters and their voices. She had a very pleasant speaking voice and was able to add some emotion into her reading. I really enjoyed listening to her narration of this book.

I would recommend this book to others. This book does touch on a lot of things that occur in the first five books of The Others series so I would recommend that the series be read in order. I cannot wait to read more stories set in this wonderful world created by Anne Bishop!

I received a digital review copy of this book from Berkley Publishing Group - Ace via NetGalley and purchased a copy of the audiobook.

Initial Thoughts
This was another great installment. It is always fun to slip back into the world of The Others. I liked all of the characters featured in this installment and all of their interactions as they worked to set up their little town. It was nice to hear a bit more about the group from the original books as well. This story was exciting and had a lot of layers to it. I decided to listen to the audiobook and thought that the narrator did an excellent job with the story.

[Robin (Bridge Four) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lake Silence, World of the Others #1, was a story with completely different characters from the main Others series. It was a good departure from the main series and I completely enjoyed it. Wild Country, World of the Others #2 is really The Others 5.5ish. At first, I was completely thrown off because it was a huge shift and timeline wise it was prior to book 1. It took awhile to immerse myself back into the story as some things are happening concurrently to Etched in Bone book 5 of The Others series.

Wild Country is set up like a story from the Wild West of old. Bennette is a ghost town after being decimated by The Others in book 4. The plan is to have a mixed community comprised of Humans and Terra Indigene. Bennette has a small town feel with a very new Wolf Sheriff and his extremely human female Deputy. Most of the story is getting the town set up with the new colonists traveling to fill the positions that might be needed in Bennette. I’m always amazed at how much I’m drawn in at this. It seems like it might be a little tedious but I really enjoy the day to day happenings in the town.

As more humans and Terra Indigene find ways to work together in the town danger looms on the horizon as different swindlers and charlatans start making there way towards only of the only cities that might be big enough to lay low in until humanity bounces back from its decimation at the hands of the elders. I loved how this book explored intuits in a new way. In all the other books intuits are all good people helping others and carrying out jobs like normal people, but attuned to danger and able to help their community prosper. Wild Country flips the script on that and shows us what intuits could do if they used their gifts for crime and stealing. It was a nice change up.

Overall I enjoyed a good portion of this story. I was entertained and after the initial disjointed feeling settled in for a good time in the new Wild Wild West. There were some great characters to get to know and I liked how the new community was coming together. Madam Scythe was one of my favorites, she is like Tess from the main Others series but very new to being around people and so there are a few moments. I love the type of terra indigene she is and was happy to see another in this story.

The only issue I had with this book was the showdown near the end. It seemed a little forced and I struggle with everything that has happened in these books so far that some of the humans would continue to be that stupid. It was a struggle especially standing in one of the towns that was completely wiped out.

Still this is a fun story for the most part and I always enjoy the different facets of The Others. While Lake Silence I think you could have read without any prior knowledge of the series, Wild Country needs to be read after Etched in bone, but could be easily read before Lake Silence.

[Deborah Obida · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it. It wasn't as great as Simon and Meg's story but its cool. Am super glad its nothing like Lake Silence, that was a parody of Simon and Meg's story.

Wild country is different in a good kind of way. I love all the multiple characters with their different background. The book is written in third person multiple POVs so its easy to know what most of the characters are thinking, even the villians have a POV, which I didn't appreciate at first.

The world building is kind of dystopian with a hint of historical fiction which the author depicted well. The book took place after the war in Thesia.

The characters are my favourite part of the book. My favourite is Virgil which am pretty sure am not pronouncing his name well. I also love Jana, Tolya, Barbara etc.

Virgil is my favourite, he is a Wolf. He can impersonate humans so well he got the job of the Sheriff, its was crazy. Jana is his deputy, I love his loyalty to those he loves.

Here are some of my favourite Virgil moments

Instead of biting her, I put Barbara Ellen in jail for a while on Firesday. When she yapped about it, I told her she needed “me time,” something I heard a cop in the TV box say to a human male before putting him in a cell.
This is a useful thing to say to females since it makes them too annoyed to continue yapping, but what, exactly, is “me time”?
—Virgil

Virgil studied the meat with considerable regret. The body. There were humans around, so he had to remember to call it a body instead of almost-fresh meat.


Jana walked into Virgil’s office, set a small roasting pan on his desk, and lifted the lid. When the Wolf said nothing and did nothing except stare at the contents of the pan, she said, “It’s an apology.”
“It looks like meat.”
“It is meat. I figured you would like that more than chocolates or flowers.”
“I do.” Now, finally, he looked at her. “Why are you apologizing?”
“This is my first job as a deputy. I’m going to make mistakes.”
He nodded. “The meat is an apology for which mistake?”
She’d made more than one? Darn it!

My second favourite character is Joshua, he is human who grew up with the Panthergard, he came into town with his Panthergard brother to learn how to act human, its so cool.

[Mitticus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note: This book should be read after Etched in Bone, as some events overlap, and before Lake Silence.

Reread agosto 2021
Tomé en cuenta mi nota y lei esto antes de Lake Silence esta vez, ya que muchas cosas ocurren al mismo tiempo que lo de Etched in Bone, aunque lo que pasa en Bennet se siente más como un choque de trenes que algo evitable como lo de Etched in Bone.

Bueno, esto es de pistoleros encuentran Wild Country es decir Otros. Lo que se convierte en un monster mashup, de Salvaje Oeste y Otros, con Bennet que es el experimento social/comedero/produccion de los Otros que es un pueblo fantasma (todos fueron muertos/comidos) en venganza por las matanzas de lobos, pero tiene una estacion de trenes que todavia sirve es colocada bajo el control de Tolya Sanguinetti para colocar unos cuantos terra indegene con humanos 'utiles' vale decir Intuits y Simple Life a repoblar el pueblo con sus servicios basicos y negocios, para que funcione en conjunto con los ranchos y Prairie Gold. Asi que empiezana recibir primero recomendados , y despues llegan los que buscan oportunidades, y entre ellos despues los oportunistas de siempre y los bandidos de todas clases.



Nunca entienden que el pueblo no es manejado pior huamnos sino por los terra indegena y que algunos humanos son no comibles, y el resto si lo son.

he said, “It is a kind of bird that humans call a pet. It lives in a cage. I don’t think it could survive here if it were released outside.” He didn’t know if that would be true under other circumstances, but with the number of predators in the area, he doubted a small bird that wasn’t native to this part of Thaisia would survive long.
“Rather like the humans themselves, living in a place that is surrounded by Elders.” Scythe smiled again.


Tenemos aqui a Jana Paniscia que sueña con ser policia viene recomendada, con un chip en el hombro porque nunca la habia dejado ser policia como tal hasta ahora por ser mujer. el wolverine.

Smaller didn’t mean incompetent. Not as muscular? So what? She had brains, and she wanted this. Hadn’t wanted to be anything else but a cop for as long as she could remember.

Los intuits jugadores y estafadores es una buena adicion, de que todos pueden ser corruptos y aprovechadores. Perdon, todos los humanos.

Ahora bien, Tolya daba la impresion de ser alguien más de temer que Vlad de Lakeside (razon por la que abuelo Erebus le da su propio territorio), pero aqui el personaje se ve mas blando, y no da el mismo miedo que Vlad. No se si sera cuestion de ambiente, pero los errores le van a costar caro.

Jesse Walker es un buen personaje, la mujer fuerte y sensata, que toma decisiones. De hecho es mejor que su hijo Tobias, que es demasiado bueno para ser verdad, y cuyo romance con Jana es del todo demasiado apresurado, no sé de donde sale eso, a menos que sea uno de esos momentos vamos a morir asi que juntemonos, pero mejor lo hace Jesse, la verdad.

Virgil tiene toda esa tragedia a cuestas y todavia tiene el tiempo para entrenar a Jana a pesar de tener todas las razones del mundo para odiar los humanos, él lleva bien el libro, ademas del crecimiento de Jana como policia al irlo comprendiendo su lugar en su pequeña manada.

Hay una muerte demás en este libro, y duele.

A Barbara la casi-vet me da ganas de ahogarla en una de sus peceras , el tipo de chica bubbly y tonta me saca de las casillas.

La parte en que todos los personajes de este universo parecen estar obsesionados con los libros me da risa y me encanta pero auch pobre Jon

“Your bed didn’t arrive, but the bookcases did.”
Now Jana laughed. “Well, there are priorities.”



Por otra parte se insinua aqui que los Elders han planeado el movimiento de los bandidos para que converjan en Bennet, para matarlos, pero dejan al resto de los pequeños depredadores cambiaformas y sanguinetti vulnerables por ser aqui tan pocos, es un dickmove Elders.





--------------------------------------------------------------

The action takes place in Bennet, a town that was depopulated of humans, and now Tolya Sanguinetti has the mission of keeping the railway station open to maintain communication and supplies between the places that still maintain a population.

With a decidedly 'last frontier' atmosphere (wild west edition), it may be the last chance for humans not to disappear. There is a large percentage of Intuits present in this book, as a way to show that * any * human can be just as greedy and stupid.

Made tear a bit at the end.

Virgil and Jana are great characters.

-RTC_

[Mogsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum https://bibliosanctum.com/2019/03/05/...

Wild Country by Anne Bishop is, bar none, my favorite book in the world of The Others to date. All my favorite elements have been brought back, while all the gripes have been either corrected or dealt with. Also, I am simply loving this spinoff format allowing the author limitless opportunities to explore the stories of other people, creatures, and places in this wondrous magical world of Thaisia.

Before I continue, because the events of Wild Country take place in the aftermath of Marked in Flesh and run concurrently with much of Etched in Bone, it may contain potential spoilers for the original 5-book series if you haven’t read it yet. This time, readers are brought to Bennett, a settlement in the wild territory known as the Elder Hills. At one point it was a thriving town, before the powerful Terra Indigene in the area killed every man, woman and child in retaliation for the slaughter of the Wolfgard pack. While the Elders have consented for Bennett to be rebuilt and repopulated, they do so with one stipulation: the town must be under Terra Indigene control, and any human living within its limits must agree to work with the Others and be subject to their authority.

As it turns out, a surprising number of humans are willing to make this bargain, though many are drawn to Bennett out of desperation. Whether it’s the need for work, a place to lie low and disappear, or simply a community in which to belong, they have all come with the hopes of making a new life for themselves. Soon, Bennett is up and running again, with a new deputy in town, a lively bookstore, and even an old-timey saloon. But even after the Elders’ show of power, some humans still have it in their heads that they can simply take from the Others what they feel is rightfully theirs. Many groups that have sprung up in recent years to take advantage of the lawless frontier environment, including a notorious gang of hustlers known as the Blackstone Clan. Unfortunately, these mobsters see the flourishing Bennett as an invitation to take some of that success for themselves, and their leader is also looking to settle a score with someone he suspects is hiding out in the town.

Without a doubt, the characters were the highlight of this novel. As thrilled as I was to make new acquaintances, I was even more excited to catch up with old friends, many of whom were introduced but only seen briefly in Marked in Flesh and Etched in Bone—names like Jana Paniccia, Barb Debany, Jesse Walker, Abigail Burch, and Virgil Wolfgard. A couple of familiar faces we’ve known even longer, like John Wolfgard, who worked at Howling Good Reads and has relocated to Bennett to run the bookstore (a staple in every Others novel), as well as Tolya Sanguinati, who has been tapped to lead the entire town. I loved getting the chance to catch up with these characters and see what they’ve all been up to, and apparently, the answer is a lot.

Much of this story involves the residents of Bennett attempting to get the town back into shape. Perhaps my only criticism of the book is that this process dragged on just a tad too long; there’s only so much description of cleaning, recruiting, hiring, and building I can take before it becomes tedious, but thankfully Bishop kept things interesting enough with the introduction of new characters and establishing their fascinating backgrounds. One example is Scythe, who is a particularly dangerous kind of Terra Indigene though she is no less enterprising because of it, hoping to set up a Wild West style saloon called the Bird Cage in Bennett. Then there’s Joshua, a young man who grew up with the Panthergard but whose origins and what they represent make him a troubling enigma for both humans and the Others. More great characters include a mixed family headed by Evan and his partner Ken, who have come to town with a group of Terra Indigene orphans they have rescued.

The result of all these different lives coming together gave this novel an incredible “fresh start” vibe that I found exciting and full of hope. Despite the town’s grim history, I loved Bennett for the same reasons I love Westerns and stories about pioneers settling on wild frontiers. This new setting also allowed for fresh situations and dynamics we’ve never seen before. One of my main complaints about Lake Silence was how similar it felt to Meg Corbyn’s story, containing a lot of parallels and reusing many the same ideas from her time in Lakeside Courtyard. Wild Country, on the other hand, felt more like a true departure, even with the return so many known characters. I especially loved the women in this book, like Jana and Abigail who despite their flaws are strong, resourceful and driven, setting themselves apart from Meg who I thought was too meek and always needed to be saved.

While some of the plot developments in the second half of Wild Country felt similar to the previous books—mainly those related to the Human vs. Others conflict—this is one area I didn’t mind where the tone and spirit remained the same. Besides, the stakes felt higher in this novel, with villainous humans who are more underhanded and devious, and likewise the Terra Indigene characters were also more ruthless and unforgiving.

Truly, Wild Country is my favorite book set in the Others world so far, and I hope Anne Bishop continues to branch out and tell even more stories about the denizens and communities surrounding the original Lakeside Courtyard. There are so many possibilities to explore, and I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was great.
It overlaps with Etched in Bone but with the focus on the town of Bennett rather than Lakeside.

But...

What on earth happened to the characters in Lake Silence? Wasn't that supposed to be the beginning of a series?

[Celeste · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can find this review and more at Novel Notions.

“We are here. We are different but we stand united to protect our home. We are different but we protect our families by blood or by heart. We are different but not alone. Never alone.

We are here.”

Wild Country is a fun return to a world I came to love years ago, but from a side that felt fresh and new and even more dangerous than the original series. It was more vicious than preceding books, though it still maintained the simplicity that first made this world so appealing. However, the brutality and setting hardened some of the softness that made the original series so intriguing, and the inclusion of more sex and language than was used in previous books gave this new community a more jaded and less trusting level of interaction than the Courtyard that so entranced me in Meg Corbyn’s story.

There’s something so unique about Bishop’s created world of the Others. For one, there’s something innocent and simple about the Others themselves. The way the Others view the world and build their communities, even those shared with humans, harkens back to simpler times, reminding me almost of a frontier town with some additional technology thrown in. Mixed in with that innocence is a brutality that is jarring in comparison, and I think that combination is what makes this series unique in a market saturated with urban fiction.

What caused me to enjoy this book a bit less than those preceding it was the aforementioned lack of trust. I know that the Others are at odds with humans, who are constantly trying to usurp these beings that refuse to give them free rein of the world. However, what made the Courtyard of the original series so appealing was the fact that individual humans were always being added into this ring of trust by the Others, proving over and over that not all humans were greedy and selfish and willing to sacrifice others to get their way.

In Wild Country, the story takes place in Bennett, a town we were actually introduced to in a previous novel as the sight of a massacre staged by the Others as a retaliation for the slaughter of a pack of shifters. Obviously, humans moving back into this town is a very touchy subject, one that is handled very delicately. I understand that a lack of trust is obviously at the forefront of every mind here, human or Other. But after certain relationships are established and bonds are formed between certain humans and the Others in this area, I expected a certain level of trust to develop. While this does eventually happen, there were many missteps made first. This is absolutely realistic and understandable. What saddened me about it was the lack of optimism that made the original series such a joy to read. Don’t get me wrong, I still very much enjoyed this book, and trust was eventually reached, but the innocence that made this series so refreshing came across as a bit tarnished here. However, this is wild country, as the title reminds us, and the change in tone is something I should have expected.

Something I did really enjoy was Bishop’s attention to a group of people I found fascinating in previous books, the Intuits. These are humans with a mysterious additional sense. If they have a feeling about something, that feeling is not to be ignored. What I loved about this book in particular is Bishop’s demonstration that Intuits are always good people, as they are kind of presented in previous books. Here, we have Intuits as both heroes and villains, and I loved seeing how people on either side of that moral divide use their gifts.

There were some wonderful characters here, who did eventually grow to trust one another through the progression of the book, as well as exhibiting some endearing character development. Our main characters are in law enforcement together, but as one is human and the other is, well, Other, they knock heads in nearly every chapter. Once they come to an understanding, they become a type of mixed pack who would do anything to protect one another and those they’ve adopted into that pack.

HE HAS TEETH.
SHE HAS A GUN.
THEY ARE THE LAW.

All of that being said, I was still thrilled with my most recent visit to the world of the Others. It remains one of the most unique urban fantasies I’ve had the pleasure of reading. Nowhere else have I experienced this mix of innocence and brutality, and it’s an adventure I recommend to anyone who’s looking for something a little different.

[Betül · Rating 5 out of 5]

**ARC provided by publisher in exchange for an honest review**



I absolutely love the amazing world Anne Bishop has created for The Others series. The paranormal beings aren't romanticized and shown in a heroic light. They are something to be afraid of because they will always protect their own first. They don't think or act like humans. They are and always will be predators. If you have read the previous books then some names will sound familiar but there are also a lot of new faces. Expect multiple POVs, but I have come to realize that I really love seeing how each character is thinking and why they are acting a certain way. There are multiple story-lines but the author did an incredible job in weaving it into one book.

"We are here. We are different but we stand united to protect our home. We are different but we protect our families, whether they are families by blood or by heart. We are different but we are not alone. Never alone. We are here."

Wild Country was action-packed, suspenseful, funny, heartbreaking, ruthless, original, and very intriguing. I loved the thought process and seeing how the Others reacted to certain situations. The confrontations between different beings was very interesting and it sometimes had me on the edge of my seat. I am just so invested in this world and characters. This book was unpredictable and had my attention from start until finish. I just hope we will get a lot more books set in this unique fantasy world, because I can't wait to see how this world and the relationships will develop further.

[☕️Kimberly (Caffeinated Reviewer) · Rating 5 out of 5]

And now I have to wait for the next. *cries*
Narrated by Alexandra Harris, Bishop takes us to the town of Bennett, set at the base of the Elder Hills. Once a robust human occupied town along the railway, it is now almost abandoned after the Teeth and Claw annihilated the humans in retribution for the slaughter of shapeshifters. (mostly the Wolfguard) It is now being resettled as a mixed community for Others and Humans.

Jana Paniccia recently graduated from the police academy and is hoping to secure a job. In the human world acceptance of female officers isn't welcome, something she can attest to during her training, but Jana is determined and more than qualified. When one of the Intuit, tells Tolya, the Sanguinati leader of Bennett that they need more humans to fill jobs, he puts out a call to the Lakeside community. They send a call out far and wide as they begin pre-screening candidates to send on the train. Jana get's a mysterious phone call about a job in the Bennet police department. With nothing to lose, she heads to Lakeside. She soon finds herself with papers and headed to Bennett.

I loved the previous book, but this story reminded me of the Lakeside community. The timeline for this tale overlaps with Etched in Bone from the Others series and there will be scenes and moments you recognize.

Virgil Wolfguard is Sheriff of Bennett and will bite anyone who misbehaves. He has a chip on his shoulder and collects orphans. He doesn't know how to react to Jana and I loved the snarls, barbs, and friendship that developed. We meet different residences of the town, including an LGBT couple, a blood prophet, intuits, elementals and more.

Bishop's world building is fantastic from settings to characters. Combined with Harris' narration I could settle into this world for a long spell.

I tried to savior Wild Country, but suspense, lies, darkness and more kept me listening into the wee hours. The sleep deprivation and extra cups of coffee was worth it!

Delivered from multiple POVs we really get a sense of all sides from the terra indigene to the criminal elements that work their way towards the town. The climactic scenes had me holding my breath and feeling a mix of emotions. The climatic scene at the end was hard, and I played the scene, reactions and actions out in my head changing the scenario each time. While, I hated the losses I think Bishop stayed true to the series.

This review was originally posted at Caffeinated Reviewer

[All Things Urban Fantasy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review courtesy of All Things Urban Fantasy.

Fans of The Others series may admit that not much has changed in the last 3 books or so, and generally that isn't an issue. The simple, day to day scenes of earnest humans living with their powerful neighbors are sweet and funny. These moments are the cream floating atop whatever greedy plot some other group of humans are building behind the Others' backs.

The key to this formula working, again and again, is not going to be the element of surprise. Rather, it is getting invested in these characters and communities. WILD COUNTRY focuses so broadly on the community, none of the characters really took control of the story. Learning new names for familiar archetypes, watching all the pins line up so they can get knocked down, even with the addition of evil Intuits, felt a little scattered and boring. The policewoman, Jana, was the character I most wanted to follow, but her story didn't built momentum until the very end.

WILD COUNTRY has the familiar elements that make an Others story fun, but also a bit more of the shortcomings that can drag the story down. A bit slower to get moving than the rest of the series, WILD COUNTRY is still worth reading. But take your time, this one isn't going to rush.

Sexual Content: A non-explicit sex scene, references to sex and rape, a non explicit rape scene.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Anne Bishop has really outdone herself with this one. I adore her series, The Others. The first five books take place in Lakeside and are some amazing books. I was so sad when I heard that Simon and Meg's story were done, and then elated to hear that she was going to continue the series with books set in other locales around the world she'd built, with different casts of characters. I enjoyed book 6, set in Sproing, and really liked the characters there, but book 7 completely knocked it out of the park.

This one is set in Bennett, near Prairie Gold, and if you remember the events of the other 6 books, the Terra Indigine and the Humans First and Last movement's clash reached a tipping point in that area. This is the rebuilding book, and the stakes are very, very high. The cast is different from that of book 6, so I'm hoping we'll get to see the Sproing residents again some time in the future, but I really, REALLY want a follow up to this one. I really like the characters in this one, and the setting, and the events of this book really build a bond between reader and cast. She might move on to another town in the next book, but I hope we'll get more visits to Bennett in the future.

Honestly, though, as long as she keeps writing stories set in this world, I'll gobble them up like candy no matter the setting or cast of characters.

Highly recommended (but read the rest of the series first if you haven't yet)!

[Brit Andrews · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let’s start off by saying that I love the original series with Meg and Simon... I did not like Lake Silence and this? I was excited for this one because I liked the characters familiar from before. Up until I wanna say 75% of the book I liked it was ready to give 4 stars... it couldn’t be 5 for me for various reasons but then... everything just went sooooo wrong.

This book takes place in Bennett one of the towns previously occupied by humans but due to the events in Marked in Flesh and the whole HFL movement the town was cleared of humans. I’ll assume that anybody reading this now has read all the before stuff because why else would you be reading this otherwise? Anyway as established in Marked in Flesh and Etched in Bone Tolya Sanguinati and Jesse Walker took over the town and were working together to make it habitable again even though it could never be controlled by humans. And of course there was the whole job fair in Lakeside in Etched in Bone that introduced Jana Paniccia the woman that wanted nothing more than to be a cop which for some reason she couldn’t be cause she’s female... seemed weird considering these were more modern times that she couldn’t be a cop and work for humans but whatever not that important. Of course there was Barb Debany from Lakeside sister of the cop who went out there to help take care of animals. Virgil Wolfgang and his dislike for humans had been previously mentioned and John Wolfgard who left a Lakeside to run the bookstore in Bennett. All the people I already knew of made this interesting to me.

Back to the story...

So Bennett is in need of people to take over businesses and do jobs and settle in the town since the former residents met with the justice of The a Wild Country. Along with the people preapproved to come into work/settle strangers start arriving asking for jobs and homes and an opportunity. The town gets some interesting people that it would have been nicer to get to k of. Like Joshua Painter a very interesting young man raised by the Pathergard and the family with the adopted non-human children. People are coming in the town is filling up things are changing and it seems to be mostly for the good. In fact it seemed pretty peaceful until it didn’t. With the world feeling smaller than it once was and travel severely restricted people who live a less than legal lifestyle are looking for opportunities. Enter the Blackstone Clan. And that is kind of where it all went wrong.

It starts at the beginning in Prairie Gold the Intuit settlement where Jesse Walker lives. Admittedly it was an interesting surprise to learn the truth about Abigail Burch. Didn’t see that one coming. Though as her storyline went on it made less and less sense. She was on the run from her family married a man moved to a small town to hide and that was fine. The way her husband Kelly suddenly just turned on her? That didn’t make any sense, sure she was acting oddly but he didn’t even really bother to figure out why. And she really could have told him. I don’t know if he just wasn’t that great of a person or for the sake of the story his character was just ripped apart for no reason (figuratively not literally). But of course naturally the family she’s hiding from are the criminals that are going to come to town. I don’t get why even when she finally told her story to others that she still never told Kelly.

Everything about the Blackstone and anybody associated with them was utterly ridiculous and just so far from reality that it’s crazy. Yes this is fiction and all but they just made no kind of sense.

One of the biggest problems I think with this spinoff series as a whole is that in the beginning at least the first 4 books cause the 5th is where it started going off the rails... but in the beginning it was mostly Meg and the Others figuring out how to coexist. They aren’t human do they don’t think like humans don’t behave like humans and Meg not raised to be human basically didn’t act like or behave like humans. The regular humans did act like humans. I mean the HFL humans were obviously stupid and delusional but they behaved like humans. But starting with Cyrus Montgomery it seemed like new humans brought into the story weren’t written properly. Like the author forgot how to make humans human. I could over look some of his ridiculousness since at the time he was the only one but now it’s become a thing. There is no realistic parts to the villains they are very juvenile and nonsensical and not threatening just dumb. In Lake Silence the main character who’s name I don’t remember and don’t care enough about to look up... she was like this too. There is just something off about the characters that I’m honestly probably explaining badly. And it’s not even all of the characters. Aside from the idiot villains who must have watched a bunch of old Westerns or something other characters weren’t great either. Jana and Barb were beyond naïve like ridiculously so. Barb was kind of flirting with the too stupid to live kind of character. Jana had her moments her chip on her shoulder about how difficult things were trying to be a female police officer was annoying. She assumed everything was because she was female immediately never thinking there could be other reasons for anything. I was ready to forgive this flaw when she admitted to herself that she was acting that way but then she ruined it because she didn’t change much. And she was painfully naïve. Before she arrived she was told how things are in the Wild Country but somehow she still didn’t understand.

I always liked Jesse and Rachel and Tobias and Tolya, However, that whole thing with Tolya and Jesse was random. I liked Scythe and wished she could have had a bigger part. And again I say Joshua he needed more attention here because I feel like his existence was the most interesting thing to happen in this book. And why didn’t they ever try to find out more about Maddy? They could have asked Meg or Hope about how to handle someone like her being that she was young but nope none of that happened.

So what ruined the whole book for me? The end...

When I first read Marked in Flesh I couldn’t get over what happened to Joe Wolfgard and that whole thing. Upon reading it a second or third time I understood that what happened to the Wolves had to happen as a way to force the Elders to act. That made sense. I understood why in Etched in Bone they let Cyrus stay in the town knowing he was dangerous. I even understood why they moved whatsherface out of her home and let the exhusband and his friends have it in Lake Silence. The fight that happened at the end of Wild Country didn’t need to happen there was absolutely no reason for it. And up until the last chapter I was willing to give 3 stars but then...

Virgil lost everything during the HFL nonsense he didn’t like humans. He was learning to get along with them in Bennett as the sherif. His relationship with Jana was funny and cute since they finally learned to work together. He lost his mate his children and his pack all he had left was his brother. And sorry here’s a spoiler can’t help it... Kane was killed and that was it. They never mentioned him again. It made sense that Virgil was worried about Jana since they became brother/sister close-ish but it just ended without him ever thinking about or dealing with anything to do with his brother the only other person to survive with him the slaughter of their pack. That killed this for me. I mean the end as a whole wasn’t good and basically from the moment Parlan Blackstone arrived it was on a steady decline but just skipping over that? And the whole fight that was highly unnecessary to begin with where they let soooooooooooo many get killed or injured served no purpose. In the other books I can understand the lesson in it where they are trying to identify different types of humans and trying to prevent people from causing trouble that will lead to extinction. At first it seemed that this one was trying to say that just because someone is Intuit or Simple Life doesn’t mean they are automatically to be trusted humans. There were just a lot of unnecessary side plots here that brought to story down. And when Parlan was admitting to knowing the HFL thing was a bad move and being logical about that whole thing at the same time he was thinking he could take over a town? No sense there at all.. going in and starting a business and being up to no good is one thing but how he thought he could take over the town when the town isn’t human run at all is baffling.

I don’t know if the series is going to continue after this and if it does I’m checked out. I’ve read the first 5 books more than once and I’ll read them again. I never so much as opened Lake Silence again and I won’t be going back to Wild Country either. Which is a shame because I like the idea of the world they live in.

[Yodamom · Rating 5 out of 5]

This spin off from The Others places us in a recovering town. One the Elders are watching, and judging to see if there is any reason to cleanse their lands. This is dark side, after the great tearing, ripping and cleansing. There is distrust, dislike and hate, around every edge in this world, building a new community will be harder. They learned.
I think I have a thing for cranky werewolves. I loved Simon in The Others and now Virgil, both cranky, possessive, protective alpha males. While they have that in common they are very different wolves. Virgil is the head of the law in this new town and Jane is his unwanted human deputy. The rest of the town is made up of various Other's and surrounded by Elders. When a request to take in more humans comes, not all the humans are good ones.
If you enjoyed the first series you will love this one.

[Dichotomy Girl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked that this book was similar in tone to the original series. However, I wish that it had been a little more focused on one person, like the early books were mostly focused on Meg.

[Eva Melchor · Rating 1 out of 5]

This has, by far, been the most disappointing series of books that I have read. Anne Bishop has created a great world that she doesn't know how to write about or expand in an effective way. A great concept that's wasted on a mediocre writer. Like, what is the point of introducing the family headed by two males if you're not going to spend a decent amount of time on them? We never see the children learn anything from older Others of their kind. Isn't that the reason they moved to Bennet? The Panthergard, Saul, and his nephew were interesting but, again, not enough time was spent on them.

You can create drama and tension between the Others, Cassandra sangue, and regular humans without killing off good characters. What was the point of killing Kane? It isn't realistic that Virgil wasn't more traumatized, angered, and hurt that his only surviving packmate (and sibling!)was killed while defending humans. Like, he accepted it and moved on. And that "friends with benefits" thing between a Sanguinati and a human came out of nowhere. Bishop probably thought it was interesting but it wasn't. She finally added a sex scene and it wasn't between Simon and Meg.

The whole Blackstone Clan thing was very stupid. Why must all of these villains be cartoonishly evil and stupid? Why do the Elders and Elementals have to be basically invincible but useless at the same time. Are they such nitwits that they can't tell the difference between good actions and bad actions. Jana is put into danger because she basically shouts at them to "fucking help us" during the last part of the book.

I would rather have read a novel that details the day-to-day interactions between the others and humans where they build actual trust, friendships, and understanding. There's enough differences between them to create a natural tension.

Every single book in this series has been the same. The humans create these tenuous bonds with the Others, some shifty human or group of humans comes along and does a series of tremendously stupid things, and then that trust is broken. The Others blame ALL humans as if they can control the actions of every other human being in the world.

Overall, very disappointing end to this series. I wish people could take over concepts because in the hands of another writer, this could probably be a way better series.

[Scratch · Rating 1 out of 5]

"The Others" series suffers from one-dimensional characters and a lack of nuance. Setting aside the rest of the argument I am about to make, that is an objective flaw to Anne Bishop's writing. The POV characters are typically young, attractive, female humans with minimal combat skills. The male leads are socially awkward shapeshifter men who talk about eating people a lot. The villains are the Humans First and Last Movement, the only rebels against the status quo created by "the Others" (more on that later). You can always tell that a character is a villain because he or she is opportunistic and wants to exploit resources for their own benefit, while saying semi-racist things about the non-human characters.

The author created this world to appeal to some sort of masochistic mentality in readers. The more I think about this universe, the more I hate it.

Humans live at the sufferance of "the Others." The various races we are told about include: Elders, Namid's Teeth and Claws (giant elemental monsters rarely seen, but understood to view humans only as prey), vampires known as "Sanguinati" who shapeshift into smoke and absorb blood through the skin, a couple Medusa-esque characters known as "harvesters," and then there are the various animal shapeshifters.

In the original five books of the series we followed Meg, a blood prophet. A "blood prophet" is a kind of precog who can only get cryptic visions of the future when her skin is cut. For some reason there are rules about whether she speaks the visions aloud to get a sense of euphoria, or whether she observes them mutely and just feels pain. She was a young, attractive female around her early 20s. Her love interest was Simon Wolfgard, one of the wolf shapeshifters, who talked about eating people in his very first chapter. The first couple books were by far the best in the series, as Meg escaped captivity and came to live in the Lakeside courtyard governed by Others. She essentially got a job at the post office, and she came to be beloved by all the various non-human characters. (As a total Mary Sue.)

"Wild Country" follows some of the same basic premise. Now we have Jana, the first female police officer ever in this reality, and her possible love interest is a different Wolfgard male. ... Of course, Jana is not the sole POV character. Barb and Abby also have significant time as POV characters, but the author was inconsistent. Some characters were abandoned halfway through the novel. Some characters were mentioned but the story didn't pay them any serious attention.

These inconsistent characters are in the town of Bennett, which is now being repopulated after the Others exterminated all the people living there. Blood prophets are mentioned, and there is a minor character who is a blood prophet, but now we are pretty much inundated with "intuit" characters. Intuits are basically precogs who get hunches rather than true visions, but they don't need to cut themselves. There is a much too-large cast of characters in "Wild Country." I would have preferred to read more about the gay male couple raising a group of supernatural kids, but they received very little screen time at all. (Also, it is offensive how the Others talked about how there is no homosexuality among the Others.)

There is also a sanguinati-human sex scene that came flying out of nowhere and then was dropped. I can't even call it a "romance" because the characters explicitly said it was a friends-with-benefits arrangement, so there is no chance that the reader can find the relationship endearing or comforting, or that the pair view each other as equals.

This book was written like bad fan-fiction. It was like a stream-of-consciousness where the author made up some characters and focused on them until she lost interest. She abandoned both main characters and side characters indiscriminately, raising the question of why she even bothered to introduce some of the minor characters.

This universe is... Wrong. The author created a world in which nature has agency. Humans moved to North America and discovered all these different types of elemental, non-human creatures, and humans were promptly enslaved by them. No human is allowed to own land, humans are routinely eaten just for trespassing in areas that the Others deem they should control, and the Others control where humans are allowed to live (and tax them on drinking water). The overarching premise of the series is that the human race lives at the sufferance of elemental monsters. This, combined with the disturbing nature of blood prophets (that they obtain "euphoria" from cutting themselves) means that the entire series is rooted in masochism.

Readers are supposed to be titillated from being hurt. Readers are supposed to enjoy the premise of living in a constant state of fear.

Ostensibly, the author's point was that she wanted to create a world in which humans would be punished for mistreating the planet. Here, Mother Nature fights back. If humans abuse resources (a common example is killing animals for sport rather than for food), aspects of "Mother Nature" will inevitably kill the offending humans by the end of the book. Anne Bishop has succeeded in cultivating a large fan base that not only tolerates this universe, but thoroughly enjoys it and defends it. Which creeps me out.

I have a theory that this whole book series is a psychological experiment to determine how many humans can be convinced to sell out the human race just because a sexy werewolf told them to.

One of my big problems is that the author oversimplified The Humans First and Last movement. They are the human rebels fighting the Others' oppression. Because Anne Bishop WANTS them to be the bad guys, she gave them a name that suggests they are racists/xenophobes. She makes them say and do terrible things, like artificially create a food shortage and starve humans to death, or arrange for women and children to be murdered. She did this just to show that they are the villains with the black hats and the twirly mustaches. Then, any named villain will inevitably get eaten/eviscerated by the end of the book.

But... They have a point? If they were simply rebels fighting to defend humans from the mass genocide perpetrated by the Others, and their point was simply, "Murdering humans is wrong!" I have no idea how they could be portrayed as villains.

The author doesn't want the rebels to be sympathetic, so she portrays them as opportunistic and selfish. That is all. She never allows the reader to consider that maybe the rebels DO have a point. It's all just so very simple.

The bad guys are bad because they're bad.

Throughout this entire series we are routinely reminded that the Others have wiped out entire cities, if not entire continents, many times. Mentioning this fact to Anne Bishop's fans produces two weird results:
1) They don't believe me, and can't seem to remember any of the references to the Others wiping out entire cities. ... This is bizarre not just because it is mentioned all the time (including in the first five pages of Wild Country), but it's an important plot point. The town of Bennett that "Wild Country" is set in is specifically being re-populated because the Others wiped out every man, woman, and child who had been living there previously. The genocide is essential to the plot.
2) Fans refuse to believe that any children were murdered. The books frequently state that entire towns were murdered, so that not a single soul is left in empty ghost towns. Yet the fans refuse to accept that that means that these Others slaughtered innocent children.

The books often have a couple scenes of hypocritical theater, when it comes to children. Readers will be informed that the Others simply return trespassing humans to their parents, more gently depending upon how young the child is. Or we have a scene where the Others display some measure of compassion for a woman with Downs Syndrome. Readers are frequently reminded of this idea that the Others think children are somehow precious. ... Yet, despite this bit of theater for the reader, the Others regularly slaughter hundreds, if not thousands, of children whenever they decide to wipe a human town off the face of the earth.

It's an example of how one death is a tragedy, and a million deaths is a statistic. That appears to be how Anne Bishop views child deaths. If you're an individual child who interacts with individual Others, you're precious! If we're talking about several hundred children living in a city that has been marked for genocide, you're shit out of luck.

Then, when I try to call out the fans on these points, they give the most outlandish defenses. A whiny girl has argued to me that humans deserve it. Sometimes the argument is that the humans in the books deserve it because of how they mistreated the Others. Sometimes the argument is that WE (as in you and me, the real humans in the real world) deserve it because of pollution.

... Lot of problems with that. What does it say about us as readers if the author managed to convince us that a rational response to a giant elemental monster coming to slaughter us all (including our children) is to shrug and say that we have it coming? "Go ahead and eat my children, they deserve it because, uh, pollution!"? What does it say about Anne Bishop that she would willingly betray the human race, portraying our oppressors as sympathetic, and she demonizes the few humans who dare to speak up against this arrangement?

Sometimes the rabid fans try to portray the Others as the victimized party. While the books do show terrorist acts committed upon the Others by the HFL movement, those were terrorist acts committed centuries after the Others established themselves as the ruling authority. The Others own all the land and command humans to obey them or else get eaten. That is just the status quo. After the Others exterminated some cities, the homogeneous group of pretty young females we were introduced to in the first five books living in the Lakeside courtyard (known as "the female pack") were basically informed that humans were on probation. The elders were on the fence about whether they would allow humanity to go on living. At all.

... How are the Others the victims here? And even if they are, how is it a rational response for real people in the real world to conclude that we deserve to be eaten/exterminated because some massive elemental monsters say that we do? If any elemental monster attacks children in front of me just because a bunch of shitty humans polluted the planet, I'm still going to fight the Others (and probably die) just because it's the right thing to do.

The problem inherent in this universe is that Anne Bishop gave nature agency. When humans die in an earthquake or a tornado in this universe, it isn't an accident. An intelligent being capable of speech chose to kill those people. We, as readers, are expected to cheer for this? For some reason?

Anne Bishop convinced some fans that it is impossible to apply human morality to these creatures. ... Why is it impossible to apply morality? Even in this most recent installment, "Wild Country," the reader observes the Wolfgard sheriff as he has an internal debate with himself about who is more in the wrong, himself or Jana. This was just a brief scene at the end of the novel, but it is noteworthy as evidence that the Others are perfectly capable of understanding the difference between right and wrong.

Bishop has created a world where a giant elemental monster rises up from the forests and slaughters humans with impunity. This monster is capable of carrying on a conversation with characters about its reasoning for slaughtering people. There is a thought process and conscious choice behind the decision. And because the monsters are more powerful than anything humans can come up with, no one can really contest their rule of Might Makes Right. If humans were capable of apprehending a Namid's Teeth and Claws while it was halfway through destroying a daycare center full of children, somehow handcuffing it and dragging it to a police station, the interview would go something like this:

NTAC: Yes, I slaughtered that daycare center, and I would do it again! My people have decided humans do not deserve to live!
POLICE: Yes, we understand that you really wanted to kill all those people. Got it. But you have to understand that killing them is wrong, right? At least in the sense that you understand how much you don't like it when humans hurt you and your loved ones?
NTAC: Your human morality doesn't apply to me! I am a force of nature! I am allowed to kill all those people because of my species!
POLICE: Yes, you came from nature. We get it. Just like all animals, including humans. But we're having a conversation right now about why you chose to kill all those people. So I'm not sure it's fair to compare yourself to a tree or gust of wind or whatever. Those things don't make choices. You did.
NTAC: *Rattles handcuffs* I WILL WIPE YOUR PEOPLE FROM THE PLANET.

I'm assuming the majority of readers are like me, and well-versed with science-fiction/fantasy worlds in which humans and alien species have come to coexist on the same planet. We're used to reading urban fantasy novels where witches, vampires, and werewolves live among humans openly. We're used to Rachel Morgan asking for an undead vampire sticker at her local DMV.

Bearing that in mind, I hold these Others to the same standards that I hold humans to. And murdering people is fucking wrong! Anne Bishop, WHY would you think it isn't? Why did you create a kind of "Fifty Shades of Grey" world in which your readers are expected to enjoy the BDSM of being constantly threatened by intelligent oppressors who believe they have absolute authority over us?

You granted agency to nature. That was your choice and the conceit of your universe. The problem is that you thereafter assumed nature would still have no moral responsibility for the choices it makes. ... Why wouldn't it? If you give a wolf the ability to walk around, talk, and make moral choices, the fact it started out as a wolf doesn't provide any justification for why it should not face any moral consequences for its choices. Sentience = Responsibility.

You can't just wax on about the blamelessness of a falling tree limb or a tornado when, in your universe, the tornado is capable of explaining its entire decision-making process in killing some people.

Yes, Meg was always a Mary Sue character. Yes, the Humans First and Last movement was always strangely demonized, the author treating the rebels as caricatures rather than as complete people with sympathetic qualities. (Also, why is there only ONE group of rebels fighting this homicidal regime of oppression? Couldn't there be a SECOND rebel group that has a mission statement simply stating that killing people = bad?)

Anne Bishop did a disservice to her own elemental creations. She refuses to respect them enough as characters in their own right to question, "Is it ethical for us to be doing this?" The Others characters don't even get to be real people because they don't get to have a sense of morality. Or if they do, it's a shitty morality. They believe that they have a divine right to treat humans as second-class citizens, and threaten them with murder at even the slightest provocation.

I liked how this series started out, taking Meg in and giving her a sense of normalcy and a place in the world. But I just don't think I can keep supporting what the author is doing here. It's not just bad writing. It's... fucking immoral.

[Treece · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rating:4 1/2 stars

A compelling, sweeping novel in the universe of The Blood Prophet/Others. Dark and dazzling, I couldn't put it down until I finished. Anne Bishop always delivers.

[Meels · Rating 5 out of 5]

Completely different feel to Lake Silence. Wild Wild West isn’t really my thing, in fact, I kind of loath it. But, I love The Others so much, I didn’t even care.

I’m kinda mad about one thing. But, that would be spoilers, so...

[Ronda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant, another epic read! I can't get enough of this series!