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Cool Hand

An Amber Farrell Novel, Bite Back, Book 4

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Cool Hand

By: Mark Henwick
Narrated by: Julia Motyka
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"If you don't believe your whole life has been a path leading to this one point, you're not focused enough."

The Athanate are on the brink of war.

Amber has to search for Diana in the forbidden zone of New Mexico, for the good of the paranormal world and her own sanity. Every step she takes is another opportunity to precipitate more conflict. Every easy choice is denied her and she must work without the support of the powerful paranormal factions in Colorado. When she most needs help, she has nothing.

But sometimes, nothing can be a real cool hand.

©2015 Mark Henwick (P)2016 Mark Henwick Fantasy Supernatural Thriller & Suspense Paranormal Fiction Latin American Mexico
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I made it to Book 4 largely because I enjoyed watching the paranormal world expand. There is a lot of padding throughout the series, but for the first few books I found much of that padding interesting enough that it didn't bother me. The supernatural world kept getting bigger, I still had questions about what Amber was and what she might eventually become, and that kept me reading.
Unfortunately, by Book 4 I realised that my interest was in the world, not Amber.
Amber is presented as a strong female protagonist: ex-military, physically capable, intelligent, increasingly powerful and willing to put herself in danger. But being capable is not the same thing as having agency.
My problem is the recurring way Amber behaves around men. She can be confrontational and fiery when the narrative wants conflict involving a boyfriend or ex-boyfriend, yet in situations where I expected that same woman to advocate for herself or the people she considers her kin, she repeatedly becomes strangely passive. Men push her around, make decisions around or for her, withhold things from her, and she tolerates behaviour that feels increasingly inconsistent with the strong woman the narrative tells me she is.
A female character does not need to dominate every conversation to be strong. She can be frightened, vulnerable, uncertain, traumatised, in love or completely outmatched. She can even choose to submit or compromise. What I need is to believe those responses belong to her.
By Book 4, I didn't.
What particularly frustrated me was that Amber clearly does possess anger and a willingness to confront people. We see it. Yet that fire seems selectively available, especially where men and romantic conflict are concerned, while situations involving her own autonomy or people she supposedly cares deeply about can receive remarkably little resistance.
After four books, this stopped feeling like a deliberately complicated woman and started feeling to me like a male author's idea of a strong woman who is powerful on paper but repeatedly passive in practice.
That's also why the series eventually lost me. I still want answers about Amber's abilities. I still find parts of the supernatural world interesting. But unanswered mysteries aren't enough to make me continue when I no longer believe in the protagonist's behaviour.
There is a potentially fascinating woman inside Amber Farrell. I just wish she'd been given more ownership of her own story.

There is a potentially fascinating woman inside Amber Farrell. I just wish she'd been given more ownership of her own story.

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