Anne Bishop's series of recent novels slowly expand the world of The Others, drawing on characters who have appeared briefly in the series and following them onto new adventures and challenges. This one centers around another small community, a newly established one, and its occupants. As ever, she creates a well-rounded and multi-faceted look at what it means to be in a community of people whose differences can cause fractures as well as build bridges for connection. This world is comforting to me now, familiar and constant, and I struggle between wanting to devour and savor each one.

If you like the series, this is a great part of it. The introduction of new characters and an emphasis on rebuilding the town changes things up. The author does tend to revisit the same ideas over again, and some of her tropes are starting to feel tired, but I'm still interested to see what she does next.

I absolutely love this author and the more I read from her the more I want to sit down and have a cup of tea or coffee with her just to find out where she gets her ideas from. All the women in her series are strong women regardless of their background and I love that. This novel kept me from wanting to put it down. The action was paced just right and the storyline proceeded cleanly even with having to go back and forth with the different characters. I highly recommend this series and this book!

Wild Country by Anne Bishop
While I'd rather read more about Meg and Simon back in Lakeside, it's interesting to meet more characters within the World of the Others. I loved the interaction between Virgil and Jana, wolf and human, and I liked that the author is creating more relationships: Jana and Tobias, as well as the interlude of Jesse and Tolya. I'm interested to see where life in Bennett will lead. I'll definitely keep reading!

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.

I really enjoy this series, and I like how in the last few books, Bishop has taken us to other parts of the world and introduced new characters and new situations, but maintaining a connection to the original cast of characters. With that being said, while I definitely enjoyed this book, I connected to Lake Silence's community and story line a bit better. Looking forward to more books in this series.

I enjoyed this book, but not quite as much as the previous ones set in this world. As this story focuses on the resettlement of the town Bennett there were a lot of different character points of view. That in itself wasn't bad, but it did take the story a while to find it's footing. This book was definitely an ensemble cast without a true main character and I have mixed feelings about that. In general I felt like I got to know the characters I wanted to get to know the most, but there were others that felt more like window dressing that could have been shone more. Some of them just seemed to have been added to create a little more drama or tension and little else, like Maddie and her family. Even though they were likable I just didn't see the need. I felt like the character of Abigail could have been left out of the story altogether as well. I just didn't really feel like she added all that much to it.

Yet again we have a book where the humans think they can overcome the terra indigene, and of course are sadly mistaken. Tolya summed it up pretty well in this book...

"But you are cattle in a pen, Mr. Blackstone, "Tolya said.


The wild west feel that permeated the book was kind of fun, and I liked the build up to the "showdown" but I was a little disappointed at how long it took the terra indigene to act in this book, and a couple of the human outlaw deaths were not as gruesome as I had hoped they would be (yes I know, call me morbid), but overall this was a pretty good read. I'm not sure what direction the author will go in other books in this series, but I'm still interested.

Thanks to Netgalley and Berkley Publishing Group for providing me with an advanced copy of this book.

Wild Country is a continuation of Anne Bishop’s World of the Others series. This book is set after the main events of the original series. I was especially happy to see the continuation of Jana Paniccia’s story after seeing her briefly in previous books. As with many of Anne Bishop’s books, I was hooked from the beginning and could hardly put this one down.

One thing I enjoyed about this book is that it is set in a time of huge transition where the whole world is changing and as such, the rules for society are changing with it. I think that Anne Bishop is great at capturing character’s thoughts and emotions as it pertains to this change in society and I appreciate her ability to create a space for her readers to be a part of such a world.

The city of Bennet was a wonderful setting for such a book and I enjoyed that the author made connections with this city to previous time in the frontier. It made me wonder…if there were such an upheaval amongst society, would we regress to an earlier form of rules and way of living? How would humans react to not being the top predator amongst a variety of species?

I loved getting to know each of the characters and watching their growth and development through the story. However, my only criticism of the book is that due to the story shifting between so many perspectives, I felt like I did not get to know a key character as well as I could for having such a pivotal role in the story. This characters relationship with other key characters felt rushed and undeveloped, as well, causing me to feel a lack of investment in the outcome of their own individual story.

Overall, I look forward to the next books in this series and can’t wait to delve back into the World of the Others.

I love reading about this world. Coming back to characters we've met previously. We see how Bennet is growing and more shifter/human interactions after the fallout of the HFL movement and the elders retaliation. We see Jana, Barbara Ellen, Tolya, Jesse and Tobias working together to keep the others and humans in communication.

Wild Country overlaps and intertwines with the books in the Others series so I definitely would not recommend reading this as a standalone book. You really need to read the other books before reading this book. Unfortunately I never thought I would be caught ever saying this because Ms. Bishop is a top author for me but this book did not drive the same impact as the other books in the series have.

Life has changed for the Lakeside courtyard and the humans in the town as the terra indigene who interact with the terra indigene there particularly Meg Corbyn. The characters in the series like Meg, Simon, the exploding fluff balls, Vlad and Grandfather Erebus, the elementals and their steeds all made such an impression on me as a reader. Even though we have a similar make up of characters in this book they somehow do not make as strong as an impression as the characters in the original series. The one strong jarring note for me is the level of violence in this particular book and the level of naivety of some of the characters who should be much smarter than they appear.

A bright note for me was the character of Jana who is brought in as the token human to the police force who turns out to be female. The wolves in the police force are the survivors of the brutal massacre that was executed by the HFL (Humans First and Last) movement and understandably really resent humans but the interaction between these characters and how Jana becomes part of the family are endearing. Of course she also brings the romance into this story.

The original series was so full of hope for a hard worn but better future. With Meg Corbyn as the center of the circle who because she did not smell like prey caused the others in the courtyard to look at her different and by extension the humans who worked with the courtyard and the circle just kept getting wider and wider. This book on the other hand starts with a wary and suspicious acceptance which spirals in the other direction. Tolya as the leader of Bennet took a very narrow eyed view of the humans who came into his town and yet when the black stones whom he had been warned about came in he just allowed them to set him up.

The sour note for me was that Tolya ignored every warning and yet the wants to turn away from the few tentative relationships that he has established in retaliation. The psychology of the various characters is the most interesting element in this story with the tongue in cheek sly humor which is so quintessentially Ms. Bishop's style. While this is not my favorite book in the series it in no way takes away from my fandom for Ms. Bishop so I am once again looking forward hopefully to what comes next from her amazing imagination and magic pen.

The newest release in Anne Bishop’s The World of the Others series takes place simultaneously with the last book in the original Others series, Etched in Bone. Fans of this world won’t be too surprised with Wild Country… there is a small group of humans trying to assimilate and work together with the Others to reopen a small town decimated when Namid’s teeth and claws swept through the human territories, there are Others setting boundaries and striving to understand their human neighbors, and, of course, there are bad guys who come to town and think they can get away with their nefarious deeds. No, there won’t be too many surprises, but that’s okay. There are so many little things about this series that I love.

This time we are taken to Bennett, a town where all the human inhabitants were killed by the Elders. The Others have decided to allow a small group of humans to resettle as long as it remains in Others control and all the new humans are interviewed and vetted. The POV switches between quite a few characters. The main ones being Jana, the new human sheriff’s deputy, Virgil Wolfgard, the newly minted sheriff whose entire pack was killed by humans, Tolya Sanquinati, who governs Bennett, and Jesse Walker, an Intuit woman who runs the general store in Prairie Gold and advises Tolya.

I feel like this world gets darker the deeper we get into it. Maybe it’s because I’m familiar with how the Elders operate and I know how low their tolerance is for human shenanigans. Maybe because I expect humans to act in the worst way possible and I know exactly what’s coming. I’m not sure, but I do know that in the original series Meg and Simon offered a bit of lightheartedness that we don’t necessarily see as much anymore. That’s not to say that there aren’t charming moments when human and others in the newer stories try to connect and understand each other. In Wild Country there is even a more traditional romance that was lovely and an open door sex scene that surprised me. But all in all, this series keeps getting darker and grittier and I love that.

It took me a bit longer to get through this installment, mainly because so many of the characters were new and I think the pacing was much slower and it was harder to get into. There is a lot of set up, but the bad guys don’t get into town until almost 75% in. That’s when the pacing really picks up until the big showdown at the end.

I am fully invested in this world and look forward to the next release. I’m hoping that Ms. Bishop decides to revisit Bennett once again as I really connected with several of the characters and hope to see them again. (Especially Tolya and Jesse.)

Favorite Quote:
There was no mercy in the wild country, no safety in the dark. She knew that. But she wondered if the people coming to Bennett fully appreciated what that meant.

Having read the rest of the series, I’m still trying to figure out exactly where Bennett is in relation to the world we know. Lakeside is probably Buffalo NY. Lake Silence takes place in the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York, and I think that Hubbney is either Syracuse, Oneida, Utica or Schenectady NY. We don’t actually see maps.

Bennett is in the upper Midwest Region in this world, so it could be any small town. It’s certainly not Chicago, because that’s Shikago.

But the problem of where things are relative to where they are in our world is starting to feel relevant. Or, more to the point, the ways in which the World of the Others does and doesn’t match our world keeps getting both more interesting and more troubling at the same time.

One of the things that makes this world so interesting is the way that human nature really isn’t any damn different in spite of all of the different ways that this world developed than our own. At the same time, that’s also one of the issues that keeps tripping me up.

I can accept that human beings would be just as self-centered as individuals in this alternate of our own history, and would also have just as short of a collective memory as they clearly do in this series. That really, really short collective memory is the thing that keeps getting them in trouble, over and over and over.

But this is a world where humanity did not evolve as the apex predator. The Others, especially the Elders of the Others, are the apex predators, and always, always have been. There is also a well-known long history of those Elders slapping humanity back into the Stone Age whenever they stop taking care of the planet and forget that they are not the ones in charge of this world.

The part of me that loves science fiction is becoming increasingly perturbed by this. If humanity is not the apex species, wouldn’t it have evolved differently? That the human race in this story is so much like us in spite of the differences is part of what draws readers into the story, but it’s also starting to make less and less sense overall.

YMMV

The story in Wild Country takes place simultaneously with the events of Etched in Bone. I don’t think you have to have read that in order to get into this one, however. The story in Wild Country is the story of a group of humans and terra indigene (The Others) starting over in the abandoned town of Bennett, somewhere in the upper Midwest.

The terra indigene are there to see if they can control a town that will mostly be populated by humans. It’s an experiment. It’s also a favor to their allies in the nearby Intuit town of Prairie Gold.

The humans who are drawn to the place are either there to make a fresh start, or are there because this empty little village at the edge of nowhere provides them with an opportunity that does not exist in the settled places that remain after events in Marked in Flesh, where the Elders got tired of the neo-Nazi shenanigans of the Humans First and Last Movement and simply decimated the human population. Again.

And there are a few who think they can take advantage of the unsettled conditions that exist at the margins of every human frontier – forgetting entirely that the humans are not in charge and never will be.

And that the Elders cannot be conned.

Escape Rating B: I couldn’t resist reading this book as soon as I received the eARC, in spite of not being able to post the review for two months. So far, every book in this series has been like reading crack, once I start I can’t stop until I finish.

The narcotic seems to be wearing off.

I still enjoyed this book, but it didn’t grab me the way the previous books have. It also didn’t hold me the way that the previous ones did. It turned out to be interesting but not compelling.

I think part of the problem was that there isn’t really a central character. Or there are too many characters contending for the position. It felt like we’re supposed to see either Tolya Sanguinati, Virgil Wolfgard or human police officer Jana Paniccia as the POV, but perspective seems to pass around a bit too much for it to work completely and there are too many others, like Jesse Walker vying for a position. Just as we start to get invested in one character we’re on the move to another.

One of the reasons that Lake Silence worked so well is that it did focus on a singular, sympathetic character. That’s missing here.

I found the whole setting up of the town to be complex, intricate and downright fascinating, but I also seem to be on a kick where complicated political stories are really working for me at the moment. There is a LOT of minutiae involved (driving Tolya Sanguinati bananas) and it doesn’t exactly make for a fast read. Interesting, but not quick.

And then there’s the Blackstone Clan invasion, along with the knot wrapped around one of the few family members to escape them. Abigail has been hiding in plain sight in Prairie Gold, but moving to Bennett has exposed all of her secrets just at the point where her nightmare of a family comes back into her life.

The invasion of the Blackstones provides a lot of danger and dramatic tension at the climax of the story, but their kind of evil didn’t feel like it fit into this world. Or possibly it’s that Abigail’s particular talent didn’t feel as well-thought-out as the other human talents we have seen.

All in all, an interesting outing in the series that kept me entertained but didn’t live up to its predecessors. Which doesn’t mean that I won’t be back for any future forays into The World of the Others – because I certainly will.

The first series of Anne Bishop’s The Others ended two years ago with Etched in Bone. Since then Bishop has written two additional books in that world for her World of the Others series. In this spin off series Bishop revisits familiar themes, while expanding the world, by introducing new types of characters and introducing new perspectives. The first book in that series was Lake Silence. It took place in an Others controlled human settlement, and it takes place a little bit after Etched in Bone. That book followed new but familiar characters and could be read as a standalone, as it only lightly references prior books.

Wild Country, however, takes things a completely different direction. As a long-time fan of the Others series, I couldn’t put it down, but it suffers from and magnifies a lot of the problematic issues from the original series - chiefly, sexualized violence against women - this time, extending beyond the exploitation of the cassandra sangue. A large of percentage of the women in this book experience some sort of violence or sexual harassment at some point in the novel and one character suffers a gratuitously explicitly violent death.

Wild Country is set in Bennett, a town massacred by the Others in response to the brutal slaughter of the dominant Wolfguard pack in the area by Humans supremacists. It takes places concurrently with Etched in Bone, heavily referencing that storyline and events in that book through the eyes of new characters, and introducing new complications and threats to the coexistence of humans and Others in Thasia. About half the cast is made up by characters previously introduced in The Others series, like Barb Debany & Tolya Sanguinati, and the residents of Prairie Gold, like Tobias and Jesse Walker.



“There was no mercy in the wild country, no safety in the dark” (Anne Bishop, Wild Country, Chp. 13).



Wild Country deals deeply with a group of people struggling to re-establish trust and negotiate new new societal norms after brutal events. Bishop explores how the survivors of the original attacks and the new arrivals experience the trauma of Bennett, through eyes of two new main characters, Jana Paniccia, a rookie Human police officer and Sheriff Virgil Wolfguard, one the surviving Wolves, who she is sent to assist in policing the growing re-populated town. It is one of the strengths of the novel how deeply this theme is explored. I loved how so many of the relationships were impacted by the trauma, and how much unpacking the characters had to do in order to understand the reactions of other people, Human and Others, to seemingly trivial things. Bishop was less deft at addressing the issues of excessive force and police brutality, and if parallels are meant to be drawn to our contemporary discussions, I am not at all comfortable with it’s seeming endorsement.

Bishop is more successful in how she works in a lot of tropes from Westerns into the plot, from the use of the saloon as the setting of many tense confrontations, to the card sharks and con-men targeting the town, to the showdown in the middle of town. It was sometimes fun and sometimes frightening to see Virgil assuming the persona of the Sheriff from the same kind of westerns he has taken to reading.

I also really love how Bishop has complicated who the Intuits are. In the original series they are almost exclusively portrayed positively. They are friends and allies of the others, often living in model communities. In Lake Silence and in Wild Country, that narrative is complicated by presenting Intuits who have chosen to leave those communities and in this one the dark side of the Intuit's knowings are explored. It helped me better understand how the situation with the cassandra sangue could have developed the way it did.



In addition to following the storyline of a western, Wild Country has the most traditional romantic arc I’ve seen from Bishop in this series. It was so straightforward and sweet that at point I worried were being set up for a bait and switch, but mercifully a HFN/HEA is achieved. Also quite surprisingly this book has great on-the-page sex between an unexpected couple and no one dies afterwards.

Wild Country is full of surprises and unexpected twists, most more unsettling and upsetting than the last while providing a heart-pounding companion story to Etched in Bone. It is not a book I would recommend to anyone except a long-time series fan however.





Content Warnings: Death of a prominent character, gore, sexual assaults, past trauma, guns, murder, rape, self-harm, torture.

Ann Bishop's Terre Indigene only vaguely resemble the animals and legends of our world; they are more like the archetypes for ours. In her world, humans are second-class citizens. However, in the prior book, a group of humans refused to accept that status and killed a number of the Others. The Terre Indigene responded by wiping out entire human cities, particularly in the country areas between the major cities.

In this book, the question is whether Others, humans, and Intuits (humans with procognitive powers) can live together in harmony. Tolya, a vampire, has been asked, with his council, to repopulate one of the small cities in the Wild Country between major cities.

The book focused mostly on those new immigrants - their back stories and how they integrate into the new environment. They included Virgil Wolfgard, the Other sheriff; Jana, his deputy; Barb, the semi-veterinarian; Scythe, the Plague Rider saloon mistress. Bishop does a terrific job of characterization.

My one criticism of the book was with the villains. They were included in the story as if it were an old-fashioned Western, with the bad gang riding closer and closer to the unsuspecting townspeople. Otherwise "Wild Country" was fantastic.

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.

In Etched in Bone, book five of The Others series, we met Jana Paniccia, a recent police academy graduate who interviewed for a sheriff’s deputy position in the small town of Bennett. Wild Country follows Jana and the rest of Bennett’s new residents, as well as those in the nearby village of Prairie Gold, as they try to rebuild after the Great Predation which left the town deserted.

Wild Country was slow starting as I got to know the large cast of mostly brand new characters in both towns. But once I felt invested, I couldn’t put it down. This world and its characters continue to fascinate me, even seven books in. I especially enjoyed the relationship between Jana and her new boss, Sheriff Virgil Wolfgard.

But even with all the new characters, I don’t feel like there’s much newness in Wild Country. Despite having three different settings, the plots of the last three books are quite similar with a human resident’s family member coming to town and causing trouble with the Others. The timelines of all three books also overlap so events from Etched in Bone are repeated in Wild Country from Bennett’s POV. I’m left feeling like the series hasn’t progressed at all in that time.

And that lack of progress is driving me crazy! At the end of Etched in Bone, I was all set to follow Jana to her new home. But the first spin off book, Lake Silence, took us to the town of Sproing instead. I spent that book getting invested in those new characters and was looking forward to learning more about the shifters there, only to go back to Jana and back to events in the previous book.

As much as I love the world of the Others, I’m frustrated by the seeming lack of a series plot. Admittedly, I’m a very series-focused reader. I suspect that the first series arc also gave me certain expectations for the next one. But I can’t help but wonder if Bishop plans to alternate between the two new towns or go to another new place entirely, or if there’s another book in the works at all. I hate the idea of leaving these characters that I’ve spent so much time getting to know.

This is another excellent installment by Anne Bishop in her Others world. Technically part of the spin-off series, the World of the Others, the events of Wild Country take place concurrently with some of the events of the last Others book, Etched in Bone. As a result, readers should note this book does contain spoilers for Etched in Bone.

One of the best aspects of Anne Bishop’s Others & World of the Others series is the way she manages to blend humor into otherwise serious topics. The main plot of the book is that humans and Others are trying to repopulate a town whose entire population was slaughtered in retaliation for humans attacking a community of wolf shifters. But despite the weighty topic and the ongoing threat that the fledgling community could be wiped out again, there are quite a few moments of levity, like when two of the survivors of the wolf shifter massacre bond with a puppy. The interactions of the humans and the Others is very well-written and shows two very disparate cultures attempting to reach a middle ground in order to create a working community.

The Wild West setting of the book was also a novel departure from the other books in the series and I was tickled by the way that popular Western tropes like a saloon, the local sheriff, and even the villains were incorporated. This book is very difficult to review without spoilers, so I will end this here, but thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for the ARC and the chance to review this book!

Welcome to Bennett. This town has been through a lot. After the tragic events in Marked in Flesh Bennett is starting over. Tolya Sanguinatti is the current mayor and basically in charge of the town. Virgil Wolfgard is the sheriff with his brother Kane as deputy. With the help of Jessie Walker and the Lakeside Courtyard, they are going to rebuild.

The events of Wild Country occur simultaneously with Etched in Bone. I liked seeing a whole town basically be a courtyard. It was also great to a bunch of characters that we met in Etched in the Bone continue their stories. Tobais and Jessie Walker feature prominently. I particularly liked Jana and I was so happy to get more of her story. I also really liked Virgil. He's a bit tragic and angry and the interactions between him and Jana are the best parts of the book.

Barb drove me a bit crazy. Happy go lucky yes, but she's going to get herself killed if she doesn't develop a little bit of caution. I missed spending time with more the others. Tolya is surrounded by humans, doing human things. Rachel is at the Inuit town and the book spend most of the time in Bennett.

I also had a problem with the ending. I get the Elders trying to stay out of it but not all the actions of the Others make sense and the ending was just done. I wanted more and I want to know where we are going next in the world of the Others.

I love this world that Anne Bishop has created! I get sucked into every book in this series. She does not disappoint with this new addition to the series!!

In a welcome, if somewhat startling, jump backwards from the first World of the Others story, Lake Silence, Anne Bishop returns her readers to Bennett, a town “cleansed” of humans by the Elders during the events of Marked in Flesh. Paralleling the timeline of Etched in Bone for much of the narrative, Wild Country is an ambitious new beginning for the people of the continent of Thaisia, and a cautionary tale for survivors on both sides of a conflict that sometimes feels eternal.

While I wish Wild Country had been released before Lake Silence, I was happy to find out the answers to so many questions that arose during the earlier novels. The story begins with a reintroduction to Jana Paniccia, the first female deputy, and follows her journey from before her previous mention to her new life in Bennett. Also returning are the residents of Prairie Gold, as well as a couple of favorites from Lakeside, which I was glad to see.

Whereas the Lakeside Others’ animosity towards humans was tempered and reshaped by their bafflement over Meg, the new order as evidenced in Wild Country isn’t nearly as lighthearted. Bennett is, ultimately, an experiment, and there are plenty of Others in and surrounding the town who are waiting for the justice its failure will bring. Of course, this test is comprised of both the predictable and the unexpected, the outcome resulting in even more uncertainty than the beginning. In fact, a quick search through my copy of Lake Silenceturned up no mention of Bennett—which I’m hoping is a fluke, rather than a warning.

The best thing about Wild Country for me was definitely the characters, whether familiar or not. Tolya Sanguinati and John Wolfgard were favorites of mine from before, along with Rachel Wolfgard, Jesse and Tobias Walker, and Barb Debany. There were also plenty of new characters that I liked instantly, including Virgil and Kane; Joshua and Saul; Becky; Evan, Kenneth, and their kids; and, most especially, Scythe and the denizens of the Bird Cage Saloon.

Although I enjoyed these and other parts of Wild Country, I had some trouble with several aspects of the story. The rapid acceptance of human law in the new version of Bennett didn’t feel right (especially after the harsh lessons learned in the war and “Great Predation”), and seemed doomed as an experiment from early on. I’m also still not sure what the author intended with much of Dina’s storyline, and found it to be rather imbalanced as a parable. Other things—an inconsistency regarding the requests for the elementals’ aid, Judd’s quick turnaround at the end, etc.—left me scratching my head quite a bit, too.

Overall, I had mixed feelings about Wild Country. On the one hand, I was happy to return to familiar territory and I enjoyed the temporal connection to the earlier stories. There were also plenty of characters that I liked tremendously. On the other, however, I got the feeling that a lot of the pieces of this new puzzle didn’t fit quite right, but had to do for the sake of the continuation of the series. And I sincerely hope that there are more novels to come. This may be a darker, more precarious world, but I very much want to know where the future will lead.