Short and Sweet Audio Book Book Reviews #41 - Written in Red by Anne Bishop, Murder of Crows by Anne Bishop, Death of a Nurse by M.C.Beaton

Written in Red by Anne Bishop
My review from the first time listening and a little more from the second time.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Once again I picked up an author I had never read in an audio book and once again I am hooked. Written in Red by Anne Bishop drew me in and would not let me go. I just listened the second time and I think I loved it even more than before.

The world building caught me first the characters kept me glued to the book. This is a world where the geography is like ours but the Others and the cassandre sangue (who are a form of human) are very different. Only the humans like us remain the same and they are not the dominant species.

Some of the Others are shape sifters, some are elementals and some are something no one even the rest of the Others ever want to meet. To the Others humans are just meat. Meg Corbyn is human but also cassandre sangue or blood prophet. She does not smell like prey as other humans do.

That sets up part of the conflict in Written in Red. Meg Corbyn is at the heart of the conflict. Meg has escaped a life she hated and the Others take her in. Human law does not apply in the Courtyard where she now lives. She is a very refreshing character. She was raised in isolation and has a very different reaction to the Others. She has an innocence that helps her win over the ones she is in contact with. Simon Wolfguard is the Other who gives Meg the job in the Courtyard. The fact that Meg does not smell like prey keeps him conflicted. The interaction between the two can sometimes be very dangerous and sometimes be very amusing.

The book can be a little dark but there were things that lightened it up I loved the names of the stores in the Courtyard and they did add a light touch. Howling Good Reads, A Little Bite, and Run and Thump - a bookstore, a coffee shop and a gym all owned by the Others.

Writing in a way that brings all of the elements of a book together into a cohesive whole takes a lot of talent. Anne Bishop has that kind of talent.

If I had been reading Written in Red it would have been a book I could not put down. Since I was listening I ended up listening to it in my house instead of my car because I had to know what was going to happen next.


Murder of Crows by Anne Bishop
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This time I listened instead of reading and found more to like.  The first book set the stage and Murder of Crows takes the world building beyond Lakeside and the Courtyard.  I love how Bishop expands the world while telling a very compelling story.

I said that I could not put Written in Red down. Before I had even finished I checked to see if Murder of Crows was on the shelf at my library. It was. I checked it out and started it as soon as Written in Red was finished. I started reading around noon and finished at 2 a.m. Once again I could not put it down.

Meg, Simon and the rest of the characters are back and trouble is still on the horizon. The two drugs that were mentioned in Written in Red are at the heart of Murder of Crows. That drug is connected to the cassandra sangue and is a threat to both humans and the Others. Meg is the important link in finding and stopping the production of the drug.

Meg grew in book one and in Murder of Crows she matures and changes even more. Her relationship with Simon is not without problems. They both have problems understanding each other and have to work to keep their friendship on track. Some of the side characters become more important in Murder of Crows. The human police that work with the Courtyard play a big role in stopping the drugs.

Anne Bishop has written another tense, slightly dark book with just the right traces of humor. My only problem – I have to wait until March of 2015 for the next book.

This would not do well as a stand alone. It picks up where book one leaves off and while there is back story you still need to start with Written in Red.



Death of a Nurse by M.C. Beaton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have listed to several other books in the Hamish Macbeth Myster series and never liked the narrator. This time there was a new voice. Graeme Malcolm does a much better job of the different characters in the story. Death of a Nurse again has Hamish seeing a pretty woman and then finding her dead. There are more than one murder in the book and it spans more than one month before everything is solved. A good addition to the series. Each book is a quick light read. You can start the series in any order and since there are now 31 book that makes it much easier to enjoy meeting Hamish.