Marked in Flesh by Anne Bishop

Marked in Flesh Book Cover Marked in Flesh
The Others
Anne Bishop
Urban Fantasy
Roc
March 8, 2016
416

Fourth in the "flawless" (The Reading Café) New York Times bestselling series from the author of Vision in Silver. For centuries, the Others and humans have lived side by side in uneasy peace. But when humankind oversteps its bounds, the Others will have to decide how much humanity they're willing to tolerate--both within themselves and within their community... Since the Others allied themselves with the cassandra sangue, the fragile yet powerful human blood prophets who were being exploited by their own kind, the delicate dynamic between humans and Others changed. Some, like Simon Wolfgard, wolf shifter and leader of the Lakeside Courtyard, and blood prophet Meg Corbyn, see the new, closer companionship as beneficial--both personally and practically. But not everyone is convinced. A group of radical humans is seeking to usurp land through a series of violent attacks on the Others. What they don't realize is that there are older and more dangerous forces than shifters and vampires protecting the land that belongs to the Others--and those forces are willing to do whatever is necessary to protect what is theirs...

I liked Marked in Flesh, but not as much as the previous books in the series. It isn’t so much a character-driven story anymore, but a thought-experiment in sociology.

There isn’t really a main character in the book anymore. The main character has always been Meg Corbyn, and although she features prominently, there are just too many characters on which to focus. Like, literally 100 characters, all with personalities and wants and desires, and it all kinda loses its focus on Meg. It is still an interesting thought-experiment, and there are brief periods of exciting action, suspense, and emotional involvement.

I feel as though many chapters of the book are trying too hard to preach one of two morals: 1. Isn’t racism bad? 2. Look how cool it is when people work together! My answers to these preachings are: 1. duh and 2. duh.

Having said that, I still enjoyed reading the book and I like the former main characters of Meg and Simon. I will definitely read the next book, but I hope that it stops exponentially expanding the characters.

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