Lake Silence by Anne Bishop -where humans are really stupid but warm and cozy feelings are all around!

Hello people! How are you? I’m really excited because I am here with a new review for a book I loved! And I know that May has just begun but I know that this one would be one of the favorites of the month, even if technically I have read it in April, because I was a bad bookworm and I haven’t waited for Wyrd and Wonder to start. But these are just details, and so we would ignore them!

Title: Lake Silence
Author: Anne Bishop
Series: The Others #6
Page count: 402

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 . . . 
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.
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.

 

This book is a companion book to the main series, that counts five volumes. The main series ends with the 5th book, but the life goes on and so the author tells us more of what happens in the world she creates after all the things happened in the main series (because some of them are really world-changing). I won’t’ tell you a lot about the story and the world-building, because I don’t want to make some spoilers, but I would try my best to explain why this series is so amazing!

First of all, the author has an amazing talent when it comes to characters. She creates a cast of characters that are all complex, all super well developed, and all of them real. They all have a story, background, issues, and feelings. I think that her characters’ development is something as much perfect as you can get. And you would soon love them all. The characters that we met in this book are not the same we have learned to know and love in the previous books but the feeling of them is just so real that it seems like you know them since forever. You would feel like they are your friends, and you would miss them terribly once you have finished the book.
And it’s not just about what you would feel for them. Nope. It’s that, even if the world that she creates is not a soft one, one in which life is easy, and the story is quite grim in some part, the book would feel like a cozy blanket in which you would immerse while reading, and that’s because even in a hard and harsh world, an unforgiving one, these characters make you feel cozy and loved. Because they are so sweet because they care and they try to do right for the people around them. And the point is that they care. All of them. And that’s an amazing thing.
I know that it may sound a tad confusing, but if you have read just one of the book in this series you would understand what I am saying. The most amazing thing, the sweetest one, the one that really moved me, and made me feel so much (feel like love, laugh, smile, cry, and all in between) is the caring. The characters here try hard to understand each other and try to help out. Obviously is not always easy to help someone, and not always the people want to be helped, but they all try and they try their best.
And seeing the Others try to understand and help and care for the human being that they consider as part of their community was really moving.

But fear not! We have other things in there aside from the amazing characters! We have, for example, an incredible understanding of human nature. The author gives us a story with a lot of meaningful insights into human nature, and she has quite a hard and clinical see of it, but she’s not shy about it. And I loved her for this. She makes her point and has no fear to bring that point home. Maybe is not the easiest choice, but I think it’s the right one. And I think it’s also what makes this reading so satisfying. She doesn’t shy away from the ugly and she fears not to say the truth. And the truth is that, basically, we as human beings are a pretty stupid species. And mind me, it’s not the main focus of the series, because this series is about human relationship, family (as the one you choose and not the one you are given at birth), friendship and, overall, about hope and goodness of heart. It’s not a pessimistic tale, mind me. But it’s truthful, and the truth sometimes can be hard to accept.
But the main point of the worldbuilding is: what if human beings are not the apex predators of this world?
And from there the author does wonders with her creations: she creates for us a world like ours, sort of, but full of strange and amazing creatures (and some of them are really amazing. I love the Elemental, for once, especially the ponies! And the Sproingers!) that have always lived with the humans, keeping their distance and ignoring them. But the power balance is to their favor, not to ours. So, maintaining the status quo would have been in our interest. But, yeh… that would have required some humility, just to start. And some good sense. But it’s a thing that is slowly disappearing from the world, and hence the story as we can read in this series.

I think that, if we want, this series can be read as a sociological essay, too. But that’s true for a lot of good fantasy. Even if most people snob them because… they are not real! Ah! If they just knew! But I am being sidetracked. I have spoken about the series more than this particular book, so it’s time to bring back the reins of the discourse!

Vickie is a woman who is trying to rebuild her life after a disastrous divorce. Her former husband left some pretty nasty scars on her, not the physical ones, but psychological ones, and she’s trying to put together her new life in a new place. From the divorce she gest a sort of resort on Lake Silence, and she’s hoping to lead a new and placid life. But things don’t go exactly as planned. For one, she hadn’t considered The Others and, second, his former husband is not done with her, or so it seems. So the poor Vickie founds herself in a story bigger than her. With more action, blood, gore, fear than what she expects. But she would also find a new family, new friends, and a new resolution. And, in the end, she would find her true self.

I am in love with this series, and between these pages, I feel at home. I feel cozy and warm, and every time I go back to these stories, I go back to old friends!

Do you know this series? Have you read some of the other books of this author? Let me know! 

Happy reading!
S.