Thoughts: Lake Silence

Lake Silence

by Anne Bishop
Book 5 of The Others

~ Goodreads ~

Rating:  4.0 Stars

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.

Lake Silence starts a new story arc in the world of The Others, and while as enjoyable and as endearing as the preceding five book story arc about Meg Corbin and her life as a mail sorter in the Lakeside community... it also doesn't escape my attention that this book regurgitates a lot of the same conflicts and plot points that took place in the five previous books of this series.  The story itself picks up after the global events of the Meg Corbin story arc, wherein a group of rebellious humans have decided that they can pull a fast one over on the Others without fear of retaliation, all along forgetting who the predators at the top of this food chain happen to be.

Lake Silence details a different story with a different set of characters, but the concept is exactly the same.  One girl becomes special to a group of Others in the village of Sproing, and they all band together to protect her when she becomes the target of more villainous, yet also ignorantly stupid humans who plan on breaking rules and pissing off Elders.  While it felt like a whole lot of plot happened in this book, the truth is, one simple plot point just got dragged out as a build-up to the newest global conflict that will probably take place in the following books after this one.

It's the exact same set-up as Written in Red had, but with a different set of characters.

What amuses me is that, no matter that I've already read this story, and seen those trees, and witnessed that gruesome killing... I'm still curiously drawn to this book, and very much enjoyed it.  Even though I had to put the book on hold about three months due to real life stuff and a massive reading slump of epic proportions, once I was able to check the book out from the library again and continued, I couldn't put it back down.

And the truth is, if I hadn't already read this story in the first five Others books, I think I would have absolutely given this a perfect 5-Star Rating.  To be honest, Lake Silence had more going for it than just the banal, everyday happenings of a mail sorter who just happens to show up and become special to a group of Others... JUST BECAUSE she is able to sort mail properly.

In fact, I like Vicki DeVine a lot more than I liked the ultimate Mary Sue who is Meg Corbin.  Vicki is just as strangely special and sometimes a bit flighty.  But she also shows a maturity that Meg did not have, mainly because of the basis of their character creations.  And Vicki has a much more interesting stream of conscience that sometimes borders on the nonsensical, yet also seems to ask the same questions we, as the readers, will sometimes ask when certain events of a book takes place.

But other than that, really, there wasn't much to Lake Silence.  The writing still proves kind of juvenile, even in the face of bloody, gory deaths and, and quite serious conspiratorial conflicts.

Am I going to continue reading these books?  Oh, most absolutely, I am!