Taste of Marrow
(2017)
Written by: Sarah Gailey
Genre: Alternate History
Pages: 192 pages
Publisher: Tor.com
Why I Chose This: I loved the first part of this series, River of Teeth, and I was super ready to jump back into hippo-infested water.
The premise:
A few months ago, Winslow Houndstooth put together the damnedest crew of outlaws, assassins, cons, and saboteurs on either side of the Harriet for a history-changing caper. Together they conspired to blow the dam that choked the Mississippi and funnel the hordes of feral hippos contained within downriver, to finally give America back its greatest waterway.
Songs are sung of their exploits, many with a haunting refrain: “And not a soul escaped alive.”
In the aftermath of the Harriet catastrophe, that crew has scattered to the winds. Some hunt the missing lovers they refuse to believe have died. Others band together to protect a precious infant and a peaceful future. All of them struggle with who they’ve become after a long life of theft, murder, deception, and general disinterest in the strictures of the law.
No Spoilers Below.
Discussion: Taste of Marrow launches with a screaming baby and an unlikely duo trying to survive each other and the men out to kill them. I love that this book picks pretty soon after the end of River of Teeth and we get to learn what happened to the motley crew that Houndstooth put together.
Archie made me so happy when she refused to change who she was even for the sake of love.
But real talk, I devoured this book at breakneck speed because my favorite couple Houndstooth and Hero weren’t together, and I had to read until they found their way together again. Their reunion is everything I wanted, well except for the raging feral hippos, they were not invited.
Again my main critique is that I wanted it to be longer. I want to spend so much more time with all these characters. Give me a video game set in this world and let me customize a hippo to ride into battle. I want to wallow in the lore and history here.
In Conclusion: Taste of Marrow is a satisfying and fun conclusion of this duology that takes you on a wild ride through the bayou and ends just like it began: with a bang (of a very different variety).
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