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3.96 AVERAGE
3.96 AVERAGE
I very much enjoyed this book. I liked both William and Cerise, and all of the secondary characters. I was leery whenever Spider and his crew were on the scene (super creepy) and I was very worried about Urow and Clara for a while. All in all, the story made me laugh, cry, and keen to continue with this series.
medium-paced
William, whom we met in the previous book, [b:On the Edge|6329547|On the Edge (The Edge, #1)|Ilona Andrews|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1275914567s/6329547.jpg|6515186] is hanging out in his trailer, collecting action figures and generally brooding over his life. Until he finds a mysterious box on his front porch. It contains some disturbing information about an old, longstanding enemy of his from his days as a soldier.
In the Weird, where the magical blue bloods live, the Duchy of Louisiana is trying to start a war with the Adriaglians. The Louisianan's have a secret spy society known as The Hand led by Williams' enemy. They have come into the Edge to retrieve an item that will supposedly guarantee a victory in the war. William is recruited by the Adriaglian secret spy society known as The Mirror to stop them, by any means necessary. So they trick him out in style, give him the name of an undercover contact near the border and send him on his merry, murdering way.
In the meantime, in the a swampy wild area in The Edge known as The Mire, Cerise Mar and her family are embroiled in a generations long feud. The cash poor, but land rich and super numerous Mars are in a dispute with the very rich but land poor (and much less numerous) Sherilee clan. Cerise's parents have gone missing and the Sherilee's are squatting on a valuable piece of Mar property. In her parents' absence, Cerise is the head of the family and must make the decisions. In the Mire, family, reputation and pride are everything. Cerise knows they have to take back what is theirs or they will lose face among the hardscrabble community that makes up Mire society.
In the midst of their separate crises, Cerise and William stumble across each other and learn that their individual troubles have a common root. The Hand. They decide to help each other to defeat The Hand and get back Cerise's parents.
That is a very, very brief outline of just the set up of this book. It does it no justice because there is so much going on with a lot of plot and quite a few characters.
First, let me talk about William. He was quite enigmatic in the first book that he really was just a nice side character who worked as a great foil for Declan. In this one he's lonely, still very bruised from his life and situation, he's a creature of his lifelong conditioning, he's a soldier, a killer and a very sweet person whose weakness is children. In other words, he is fully realized and he is wonderful to know.
Cerise is, imo, less effective as a singular stand out character. She is a very good construct but she pales in comparison to William. or maybe she reminded me too much of Rose. She is plucky, a caretaker for the family, has a lethal magical flash etc. etc.
Her family, otoh,are Outstanding! I loved the Mar family. Every. Single. One. This is where I think the book absolutely soars. There are a lot of people in Cerise's family and the author manages to distill the essence of all the ones we meet. They were each so distinct and vivid. I would've been happy if the book was just about the feud between the Mars and the Sherilee's without all the weird creepy stuff with The Hand. I really wanted to just stay in the Mire and watch all the Mars and the Sherillees go after each other. I sometimes think that is all William wanted too.
But no, we had the larger plot with the War and what The Hand wanted to get their - ha ha -- hands on. It has something to do with the Marses and we don't find out until very, very, very late in the book what it is.
This is where the book lost me a bit. When we find out what the big revelation is I'm all "eh?" It was also never really clear how The Hand knew all about this thing and how they knew that it would do what they needed it to do.
This is why I can't really give this book a 5-star. By the time we got to the huge revelation of what they wanted that whole plot seemed almost extraneous. I got so caught up in the characters, I almost didn't care anymore about that part. I had even forgotten all about William's conscription by The Mirror.
I do have to talk about the world building. This is where I think Andrews excels. I felt like that I really immersed in this world. There wasn't an element that felt old or interchangeable with another book. This felt unique to these people and this place. So as I was reading it, corny as it sounds, I felt transported. The descriptions of the creatures and monstrosities, the swampiness, the water, the Mire itself --- it all felt incredibly atmospheric. This is excellent world-building. I feel the exact same way when I am reading Nalini Signh's Psy-Changeling series or Andrews' Kate Daniels series. the only thing is, I would've loved a map to get a visual idea of physically where the Weird, The Edge and The Broken all are in relation to each other. My mind can't wrap that.
And finally a couple other small quibbles. There were two main villains in this book -- The Spider and Lagar Sherillee. We got glimpses of something beyond simply villainy in both of these people, especially Lagar. I wish that had been explored more.
Great book. I liked it a little more than the first one.
Highly recommend!
In the Weird, where the magical blue bloods live, the Duchy of Louisiana is trying to start a war with the Adriaglians. The Louisianan's have a secret spy society known as The Hand led by Williams' enemy. They have come into the Edge to retrieve an item that will supposedly guarantee a victory in the war. William is recruited by the Adriaglian secret spy society known as The Mirror to stop them, by any means necessary. So they trick him out in style, give him the name of an undercover contact near the border and send him on his merry, murdering way.
In the meantime, in the a swampy wild area in The Edge known as The Mire, Cerise Mar and her family are embroiled in a generations long feud. The cash poor, but land rich and super numerous Mars are in a dispute with the very rich but land poor (and much less numerous) Sherilee clan. Cerise's parents have gone missing and the Sherilee's are squatting on a valuable piece of Mar property. In her parents' absence, Cerise is the head of the family and must make the decisions. In the Mire, family, reputation and pride are everything. Cerise knows they have to take back what is theirs or they will lose face among the hardscrabble community that makes up Mire society.
In the midst of their separate crises, Cerise and William stumble across each other and learn that their individual troubles have a common root. The Hand. They decide to help each other to defeat The Hand and get back Cerise's parents.
That is a very, very brief outline of just the set up of this book. It does it no justice because there is so much going on with a lot of plot and quite a few characters.
First, let me talk about William. He was quite enigmatic in the first book that he really was just a nice side character who worked as a great foil for Declan. In this one he's lonely, still very bruised from his life and situation, he's a creature of his lifelong conditioning, he's a soldier, a killer and a very sweet person whose weakness is children. In other words, he is fully realized and he is wonderful to know.
Cerise is, imo, less effective as a singular stand out character. She is a very good construct but she pales in comparison to William. or maybe she reminded me too much of Rose. She is plucky, a caretaker for the family, has a lethal magical flash etc. etc.
Her family, otoh,are Outstanding! I loved the Mar family. Every. Single. One. This is where I think the book absolutely soars. There are a lot of people in Cerise's family and the author manages to distill the essence of all the ones we meet. They were each so distinct and vivid. I would've been happy if the book was just about the feud between the Mars and the Sherilee's without all the weird creepy stuff with The Hand. I really wanted to just stay in the Mire and watch all the Mars and the Sherillees go after each other. I sometimes think that is all William wanted too.
But no, we had the larger plot with the War and what The Hand wanted to get their - ha ha -- hands on. It has something to do with the Marses and we don't find out until very, very, very late in the book what it is.
This is where the book lost me a bit. When we find out what the big revelation is I'm all "eh?" It was also never really clear how The Hand knew all about this thing and how they knew that it would do what they needed it to do.
This is why I can't really give this book a 5-star. By the time we got to the huge revelation of what they wanted that whole plot seemed almost extraneous. I got so caught up in the characters, I almost didn't care anymore about that part. I had even forgotten all about William's conscription by The Mirror.
I do have to talk about the world building. This is where I think Andrews excels. I felt like that I really immersed in this world. There wasn't an element that felt old or interchangeable with another book. This felt unique to these people and this place. So as I was reading it, corny as it sounds, I felt transported. The descriptions of the creatures and monstrosities, the swampiness, the water, the Mire itself --- it all felt incredibly atmospheric. This is excellent world-building. I feel the exact same way when I am reading Nalini Signh's Psy-Changeling series or Andrews' Kate Daniels series. the only thing is, I would've loved a map to get a visual idea of physically where the Weird, The Edge and The Broken all are in relation to each other. My mind can't wrap that.
And finally a couple other small quibbles. There were two main villains in this book -- The Spider and Lagar Sherillee. We got glimpses of something beyond simply villainy in both of these people, especially Lagar. I wish that had been explored more.
Great book. I liked it a little more than the first one.
Highly recommend!
It was great to be back in the world of On the Edge. I really like that this is more like a spin-off than a sequel. I also enjoyed that it would work as a stand-alone with a sort of subtlety to the world building.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
William is a changeling, raised to be a killing machine by a kingdom that sees him as a subhuman tool. The Mirror sends him as a spy to retrieve some information from the Mire, and to kill Spider, an agent of the Hand who has a personal mission to kill all changelings. On the way h meets Cerise, a member of the Mar family whose dormant feud with the Sherile family has been restarted with some help from the Hand.
I like Cerise and William as the main narrators. Their attraction is present early, but it takes most of the book before they're able to hit the right combination of decisive and vulnerable to do something more long-term about it.
As a sequel, BAYOU MOON follows William, a secondary character from ON THE EDGE. Other than answering very briefly how Rose and Declan are doing, it doesn't try to wrap up anything from the first book. It's an entirely new storyline, with the entire plot as a pile of major things that are introduced and resolved. It gives the characters a new status by the end, one which doesn't require major updates unless they have another adventure in the series. It's not trying to leave things for later (other than that the character may appear in future books), and ON THE EDGE didn't leave much for BAYOU MOON to wrap up. It seems to tease the possibility of future updates on the kids (Jack and George from the first book, plus Lark and Gaston from this one), but wouldn't require them.
This time the main narrators are William (a secondary character from ON THE EDGE) and Cerise. William’s narration is consistent with how he was as a mostly non-POV character in the first book. It could mostly make sense to start here. Extremely basic worldbuilding details are shown rather than explained as much as in the first book, but they also aren't as big of a deal this time around since most of the plot stays in the Mire (a region of the Edge).
Changelings have difficulty understanding social situations, don't understand lying, and have a whole bunch of other mismatches with the rest of society that add up to make them feel like an allistic portrayal of autistic people (albeit ones who can turn into animals). I don't think this is necessarily on purpose, but choosing the term "changeling" makes the parallels harder to dismiss. Whether or not this parallel is on purpose, I appreciate that William is one of the main point-of-view characters, as it means his differences in processing are shown as a coherent whole that (combined with his specialized military experience) is a different way of thinking about things rather than just being viewed from the outside as him having trouble understanding things. There's a great balance between where he excels and where other people have trouble seeing his perspective.
The plot feels even more convoluted than ON THE EDGE. In BAYOU MOON, Cerise and the Mars have a specific goal (kick the Sheriles out of her grandparents house), Spider and the Hand have a reason for their operation (trying to get access to something one of the Mars developed), and the Sheriles are trying to restart the feud (by taking a house). William is sent into this by the Mirror (an organization who wants him to retrieve whatever the Hand is trying to get, but do it first), and along the way he and Cerise start falling for each other. Cerise has so many relatives, many of which are named and distinctly characterized, and Spider's group is full of modified operatives whose mutations are described at length (even if only at the moment of death). Each of the goals I've already mentioned have either a lot of steps to get there (like torture for information) or gain extra steps after the first goal is met and they have to keep dealing with another group that's in play. It took several re-reads before I felt like I have a handle on all the moving pieces (ON THE EDGE had this tendency a little, but in BAYOU MOON it starts to be a problem for people like me who are bad at remembering character names).
I like most of the characters (I need more Kalder in my life), but the plot is very convoluted and feels off-putting even though I've read it before. I recommend it as part of The Edge series, for a wonderful amount of William and the introduction of Cerise, but it's not my favorite in the series.
I like Cerise and William as the main narrators. Their attraction is present early, but it takes most of the book before they're able to hit the right combination of decisive and vulnerable to do something more long-term about it.
As a sequel, BAYOU MOON follows William, a secondary character from ON THE EDGE. Other than answering very briefly how Rose and Declan are doing, it doesn't try to wrap up anything from the first book. It's an entirely new storyline, with the entire plot as a pile of major things that are introduced and resolved. It gives the characters a new status by the end, one which doesn't require major updates unless they have another adventure in the series. It's not trying to leave things for later (other than that the character may appear in future books), and ON THE EDGE didn't leave much for BAYOU MOON to wrap up. It seems to tease the possibility of future updates on the kids (Jack and George from the first book, plus Lark and Gaston from this one), but wouldn't require them.
This time the main narrators are William (a secondary character from ON THE EDGE) and Cerise. William’s narration is consistent with how he was as a mostly non-POV character in the first book. It could mostly make sense to start here. Extremely basic worldbuilding details are shown rather than explained as much as in the first book, but they also aren't as big of a deal this time around since most of the plot stays in the Mire (a region of the Edge).
Changelings have difficulty understanding social situations, don't understand lying, and have a whole bunch of other mismatches with the rest of society that add up to make them feel like an allistic portrayal of autistic people (albeit ones who can turn into animals). I don't think this is necessarily on purpose, but choosing the term "changeling" makes the parallels harder to dismiss. Whether or not this parallel is on purpose, I appreciate that William is one of the main point-of-view characters, as it means his differences in processing are shown as a coherent whole that (combined with his specialized military experience) is a different way of thinking about things rather than just being viewed from the outside as him having trouble understanding things. There's a great balance between where he excels and where other people have trouble seeing his perspective.
The plot feels even more convoluted than ON THE EDGE. In BAYOU MOON, Cerise and the Mars have a specific goal (kick the Sheriles out of her grandparents house), Spider and the Hand have a reason for their operation (trying to get access to something one of the Mars developed), and the Sheriles are trying to restart the feud (by taking a house). William is sent into this by the Mirror (an organization who wants him to retrieve whatever the Hand is trying to get, but do it first), and along the way he and Cerise start falling for each other. Cerise has so many relatives, many of which are named and distinctly characterized, and Spider's group is full of modified operatives whose mutations are described at length (even if only at the moment of death). Each of the goals I've already mentioned have either a lot of steps to get there (like torture for information) or gain extra steps after the first goal is met and they have to keep dealing with another group that's in play. It took several re-reads before I felt like I have a handle on all the moving pieces (ON THE EDGE had this tendency a little, but in BAYOU MOON it starts to be a problem for people like me who are bad at remembering character names).
I like most of the characters (I need more Kalder in my life), but the plot is very convoluted and feels off-putting even though I've read it before. I recommend it as part of The Edge series, for a wonderful amount of William and the introduction of Cerise, but it's not my favorite in the series.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Blood
Moderate: Ableism, Cursing, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Alcohol, Classism
Minor: Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Genocide, Rape, Sexual assault, Slavery, Death of parent, War
Sigh. I don't know if Ilona Andrews can write a bad book. I'd be fine if they never proved me wrong, btw.
The thing I luurve about Ilona Andrews books is that you'll get a lot of ka-pow with a dash of shezam.
Bayou Moon had the ittlest, tiniest pinch of shezam ever.
Reading about Cerise and William was very easy. They're both super likeable and have vulnerabilities in all the right places. This will sound so asinine, but reading about William made me nostaligic for my own puppy (RIP Goldie). I don't how they managed to make William cute and cuddly and dangerously sexy all at the same time, but they did. And Cerise, well, she's like every other Ilona Andrew main - kick ass, albeit a much muddier version.
Anyway. Fans will laugh & cheer. I did.
The thing I luurve about Ilona Andrews books is that you'll get a lot of ka-pow with a dash of shezam.
Bayou Moon had the ittlest, tiniest pinch of shezam ever.
Reading about Cerise and William was very easy. They're both super likeable and have vulnerabilities in all the right places. This will sound so asinine, but reading about William made me nostaligic for my own puppy (RIP Goldie). I don't how they managed to make William cute and cuddly and dangerously sexy all at the same time, but they did. And Cerise, well, she's like every other Ilona Andrew main - kick ass, albeit a much muddier version.
Anyway. Fans will laugh & cheer. I did.
It wasn't the same characters as book 1 (side character from book 1's story). It wasn't as interesting to me rn, and I've got a large backlist to read and listen to. May pick up again later when I need something fun to read.
I love Ilona Andrews but this book is just a touch too gruesome for me. I’m going to have nightmares for a week starting the Hand operatives.