Murder of Crows (The Others, #2)

by Anne Bishop

[Melanie]

Listening to audiobook.

Drop what you are doing and read this series now. Best book of 2014, and I have a feeling I will feel the same at the end of the year.

I started this series late, as it was on everyone's must read list for 2013. I listened to book one in January and learned why everyone loved it. It is so completely different from everything else that is out on the market at this time, it is just great. The world-building is amazing. The characters, while they are not cuddly, they are still lovable in their own way. The series is very dark, but still has moments that will make you laugh.

In this book, we start a few weeks after the end of book one. Meg has ingrained herself even further into the courtyard and the lives of the terra indigene that live there. I love how such a fragile young girl is able to stand up to such ferocious creatures that surround here like it is nothing. The way she is able to cowl a wolf by just refusing to give him cookies, which he could easily overpower and take for himself, just shows that Meg has something more than most humans have. I think might be some sort of defense mechanism that the cassandra sangue may have developed to help defend them. It is not just the adults who understand how fragile she is, but the pups who have never even met her that have this reaction to her.

I also love how the author addresses the "wolf lovers" and the way the human population at large reacts to them. This is not something that is new to us, fiction or real history. How often do you see people who are shunned for trying to bridge the gap between to groups of individuals, whether it be race, religion or in this case species? The big difference here, is you have the lesser race being persecuted for interacting with the more dominate group. Usually, in real history, this is something that is admired and something people aspire to do. We want to be with the people of power, but that is not the case in this world. In this world, humans who want to interact with the others are viewed as traitors to their race.

The narrator made some changes to the words she is using in this book compared to book one. Like saying "bow" the word instead of B.O.W. as letters. Since I've listened to both, I'm not sure how it is written, not sure which is correct, but the change is strange. She is also pronouncing cassandra sangue differently in this book than in book one. I hope that we have some sort of consistency going forward in the series.

I do love how the narrator portrays Meg. She really brings out the innocence in her, but also strength. She still does a great job with all the difference characters and their personalities, even when they are in wolf form.