Book Review – Lake Silence

Not so much spoilers as it just references to events in earlier books in this series which if you haven’t read them you just won’t get.

Book: Lake Silence (The Others 6, The World of the Others 1) by Anne Bishop
Release Date: March 6th 2018
Tags: Urban Fantasy / Fantasy / Supernatural Creatures / Mental Health / PTSD / Anxiety
Other books in this series I reviewed
Written in Red / Murder of Crows / Vision in Silver / Marked in Flesh / Etched in Bone

Synopsis

 Human laws do not apply in the territory controlled by the Others–vampires, shapeshifters, and paranormal beings even more deadly. And this is a fact that humans should never, ever forget . . .
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After her divorce, Vicki DeVine took over a rustic resort near Lake Silence, in a human town that is not human controlled. Towns like Vicki’s have no distance from the Others, the dominant predators that rule most of the land and all of the water throughout the world. And when a place has no boundaries, you never really know what’s out there watching you.
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Vicki was hoping to find a new career and a new life. But when her lodger, Aggie Crowe–one of the shapeshifting Others–discovers a dead body, Vicki finds trouble instead. The detectives want to pin the man’s death on her, despite the evidence that nothing human could have killed the victim. As Vicki and her friends search for answers, things get dangerous–and it’ll take everything they have to stay alive.

Review

I think The Others books have been one of the hardest books for me to review overall. And Lake Silence certainly has not been an exception. I seem to have been one of the few who did not feel unsatisfied with the ending of Etched in Bone with Meg and Simon. While I would love to see the characters from the first five books again, I am content with where Anne Bishop let them be. So I went into Lake Silence as opened minded as one can be when you are already familiar with the world. And I think that worked in my benefit.

Lake Silence is basically a standalone novel in the world of the Others. Sproing is not mentioned  in the other books and as such has quite a blank slate to us. It is a very small town and community near the lake. After the happenings of the first five books Sproing and the general area seems to have gotten off rather well. And it shows in some of the backwater thoughts some of these side characters have.

Our main character Vicki is newly divorced and is taken on the resort near Lake Silence. A resort that apparently has had different meaning to the Others. Vicki just wants to find her own place in the world after her disaster of a marriage. But some people certainly have other ideas… I enjoyed Vicki for the most part as a character. She made me laugh. She was a bit of a damsel in distress in places, in other places she wanted to kick ass.  I think her anxiety (as well as the ptsd of another character) was overall well displayed and great to see in some urban fantasy.

Compared to first The Others books Lake Silence was a bit more filled with various tropes. But it just did not bother me at all. I completely enjoyed going back to this world. I loved The Others and the familiar Sanguine we got to see. And surprisingly I actually ended up really loving the point of view of the police officer Grimshaw. Initially I felt nothing for his first chapter but then I fell very hard for his character that I quite enjoyed.

I also really enjoyed the small community feeling that ran through the book and how some of the other ladies took on Vicki.

Romance wise this is another slow burn. Vicki isn’t ready for a new relationship. Not for a long time and that is very respected throughout the book. There is some hinting towards it in the epilogue at the end but that is it really. And as this is a standalone we are unlikely to get more than this. And that is okay.