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Never Knew Another (2011)

by J.M. McDermott(Favorite Author)

3.54 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1597802158 (ISBN13: 9781597802154)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Night Shade Books

series

Dogsland

review 1: This book is a hallucination caused by snorting demon blood. You think I'm joking? Well, maybe about the snorting part, but it's a frame story from the perspective of two wolfish demon hunters who experience the life of a demon through his bones in order to track down the taint of his blood and sweat. The novel is written in a surreal style, more a piece of modern art than a plot. The content of that blood-and-mud painting surprised me.Never Knew Another depicts the other, the persecuted demons who are cursed with poisonous blood and deformity. The principal demon had his wings cut off at birth to make him look more human. Another must hide her scales and forked tongue. A third, a master thief, is doomed to forget people after a week. Their sweat eats through their clothin... moreg. All would be burned if the city folk knew what they were. All believe demons are corrupt, but they don't act any worse than people living in constant fear. When one of the demons meets another, the relief they feel is overwhelming. Because nothing is more frightening than to believe oneself utterly alone.
review 2: They slip in among the men and women of day to day life, the offspring of demons whose blood is acid and whose very presence can cause a person to sicken. Their deformities, reminders of their demonic heritage, can be hidden like the wings Jona's mother cut from his back, or debilitating like the long forked tongue, black scales, and talons Rachel's father left her. To be a demon child is to be marked for death. So Jona works hard as a Kings Man, passing for mortal day by day. Rachel moves from city to city with her brother, dressed as a mystic, ready to flee in an instant.Never did either of them know that there were others like them until they met each other.Never Knew Another is an eerie, beautiful book. The lives of the demon children unfold with a rare delicacy and awareness of just how precarious life is for them. The main narrator is one of two Walkers- wolves that can take the shape of man and who are holy hunters of the demon children- as she moves through Jona's memories in pursuit of another demon child. It is a point of view that is more alien than that of the demon children themselves, and I think it strengthens the overall pull of the story.It is a book about fear and loneliness, and need for connection and community and the comfort of things that are familiar. It is eerie and wonderful and will linger with you long after you have turned the last page. less

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