Written in Red

Meg Corbyn has spent her whole life as a cassandra sangue, a blood prophet whose skin must be cut before she sees the future. Her Controller kept her enslaved and sold what she saw. Now she has escaped, and the only refuge she can find is the Lakeside Courtyard.

The Courtyard is a business that deals with humans, but the Others run it. Shapeshifters, vampires and other terra indigene hold a wary, uneasy power over the people living around them. Simon Wolfgard, a shapeshifter, hires Meg as the Courtyard's human liaison, though he does so reluctantly and without knowing what she is running from.

Once Simon learns the truth, he has to weigh what protecting her might cost. A conflict is building between humans and the Others, and keeping Meg could push it into the open.

This is urban fantasy, the first book in the Others series. It builds its world in detail and inverts the usual order: the supposed monsters are the ones who keep the peace, and the humans are the danger. Meg's fear and her need for safety sit at the centre, while the tension comes from a fragile arrangement between two kinds of people who do not trust each other.