Alex Bledsoe

This was an enjoyable story of a strong woman who learned how to acknowledge her path and become stronger. The first strength is mainly physical agility, willfulness and a natural attractiveness. The second strength is being able to sense what is right for herself, and then pursue that.
The new culture Bledsoe invented is intriguing, easily assumed to be Native American (it's not), and includes traits we can internalize, e.g. making music together as community building, songs as a source of inner strength.
Maybe more foul language & loose sex than I usually select in a book, but it's nothing I haven't heard before.… (mere)

Alas.. I still love the premise of these stories, but I found this one unnecessarily violent, awash in not very believable machismo, and at times, it all felt contrived. Especially some of the sexual glamour.

The constant physical violence the protagonist endured tested my own endurance, both of us slogging through endless descriptions of pain, suffering, etc. Very annoying.

And I felt that the mysterious back story of who these people are, the magic of the songs and wind, why they are at odds with one another, etc. was increasingly convoluted.

I wanted SO much to like this as much as "The Hum and the Shiver," but I was, in the end, disappointed. Waiting for the next one in hopes of best 2 out of three.… (mere)

This book particularly appealed to me because it takes place in a thinly-disguised town in the next country from where I grew up in East Tennessee. And the Tufa people are a fantasy re-imagining of the Melungeon people who do, in fact, live in the area.
That said, I enjoyed the story, but only modestly. I may well read the sequel because Bledsoe does such masterful job of evoking my homeland. But it isn't a burning ambition at the moment.
[Audiobook note]: The audiobook is performed by two readers: one when the narration mostly comes from a female character; the other when it comes from a male. While I can understand why the producer chose to do this, I'm not sure it was the best decision. The female reader (Emily Janice Card) does a much better job of capturing the mountain accent. And the story might have been smoother without the back-and-forth transition between readers.]… (mere)