Written in Red – Anne Bishop

This is a really interesting world – the terre indigene existed long before humans, and control all the lands. They have compounds called Courtyards within each human city where they can interact with humans, but they are fully in charge of those interactions.

Meg is a blood prophet, which means she’s been kept in isolation her whole life – she manages to escape and happens upon a Courtyard looking for a new human liaison. What’s interesting about the Others is that those that the humans see – werewolves, vampires, etc. are just the tip of the iceberg – most humans have no idea they’re buffered from Elementals that could kill them in an instant.

Because Meg has lived in such isolation, she’s even learning to be human, and she ends up bringing the Others in her new home on that journey along with her. And of course, Meg’s keepers don’t really want to let her go, so when they come after her, the Others have to deal with that, and they have no qualms defending someone they’ve decided to bring into their family.

I really love that the others are completely in charge here, and are not particularly romantic versions of the archtypical “monsters” the author chose to bring in. I’m definitely interested to see where things go from here.