Other Than

by Mia Jo Celeste

It only takes one drink from the Water of Immortality to kill Evie Woods—halfway. Trapped in undead flesh, the world’s last skin-slider wakens on an island purgatory where a cursed spring bubbles with immortality, and zombie cannibals crave living flesh. Her only hope of escape rests in the hands of the one man who would see her fail. Lord Victor Lowell, the man of her dreams and darkest nightmares. Contrary and intractable, Victor preys on others to maintain his angelic charisma and preternatural prowess.

Trapped in an ever escalating war they can’t stop, Victor and Evie fight time for a cure, but as the long days pass, blackness tears at Evie, ripping her thoughts from her one memory at a time. Victor will do whatever it takes to prevent her from deteriorating into a rotting husk, even if it means dooming himself, but Evie won’t surrender his soul without a fight.

Genres: Zombies

394 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 27, 2017

Reviews

[Jennifer / JG's Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Other Than is a really unique book. I’ve never read a story like this one and I was completely intrigued by it. The book takes place in 1774 and is told from the perspective of Evie (the book is written in 3rd person). Evie is a skin slider, which is like a shapeshifter, except she only changes her physical appearance, not into an animal. The story begins with Evie “waking up” after having died from a virus. She’s on a ship with her father, traveling to Lowell Island to try and find a cure for her condition. Before the ship arrives, Evie’s father dies and Evie discovers she has a connection/bond with one of the other passengers on board. That passenger is Victor and he is the lord of Lowell Island. They arrive and Evie has to quickly learn to navigate her new relationship and everything else that is happening on the island while trying to find a cure for her condition. There is A LOT that happens over the course of this book. The action is non-stop and is sometimes pretty violent and bloody (I mean, it’s a story with zombies, so of course there’s going to be some blood and violence). I kinda think I need to read this book again because I feel like I didn’t fully absorb everything that happened in this book. The book does have a relatively happy ending, but it ends in a way that seems like there may be a follow up book. One thing that I would have liked to know more about is the connection between Evie and Victor. I wanted to know why the bond/connection developed and if there’s some other purpose for it, aside from just kind of speeding up the whole relationship aspect of the story. Overall, I really liked this book. I listened to the audiobook version of this book and the narrator did a great job narrating the book. Once again, this book is unlike anything I’ve read before and is not a book that everyone will like. If you’re looking for a different type of story and want to step outside of your book comfort zone, then at least check out the book sample because this book is worth checking out.

[Valery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the title of this book, Other Than by Mia Jo Celeste, her first kindle book which sets the stage for more in the series. The opening is a little reminiscent of Poe, half dead corpses in coffins. This aspect kind of reminded me of Premature Burial by Poe; while in fact, Evie, our lead female heroine is half dead. She is likely suspended, half dead, half alive. A shape shifter, or skin-slider as described. She is the daughter of a doctor, knows much about herbs and potions, and is her father's apprentice. She wakes up in a coffin that is headed to an island, Lowell island, sinister and inhabited by Lord Victor Lowell and a multitude of wild cannibals. What may begin as a romance between Evie and the dark and mysterious Lowell confounds and confuses Evie; there are dark forces at work that Evie must overcome. Celeste has a way of capturing the world of vampires as accurately as a writer can describe something that is both fantastical and scary. A worthy trip awaits the reader in this captivating dystopian romance.

[Julius Blitzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is so much to talk about this book and how much I love it, I honestly don’t know where to start.
Okay to be completely honest, the ‘zombie genre’ has been horribly overused these past years, and tv shows and movies such as ‘The Walking Dead’ are slowly dying because there aren’t any scary factor or enough plot to keep the show and their viewers stick to the characters, I mean we have come to the point where even zombies are boring, how about that? But fear not, this book will surely rise any hope you still have, and it will set the bar very high to other to surpass it, although, it’s going to take a while.
New twists, new races, a whole new and scarier way to see zombies, to the point where you are going to forget there are zombies, there’s so much to enjoy here it’s unbelievable, and the characters, Evie is so amazing how she is fighting to keep her humanity, if you love ‘zombie stories’ you should give a chance to this book immediately!

[Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Those the disease takes awaken after death.’

Wisconsin author Mia Jo Celeste comes from a family of teachers and has followed that same path - after 15 years as an English (for Language Learners) teacher, she has turned to writing, having completed four fantasy novels. She is a member of Wisconsin Regional Writers, Wisconsin Romance Writers, Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal Special Interest Chapter, From the Heart Romance Writers, and The Romance Writers of America.

Mia loves zombies, science fiction, suspense and fantasy and all things dystopian. For this, her first published book on Kindle – OTHER THAN - (love the title!) she leads us into a zone of the undead and does it with such ease and grace that she instantly makes believers of even the most disbeliever! She opens her story in 1774 along the New England Coast – a perfect place for stories of this genre to begin. ‘Sometimes illness wheedles life away like a wave pilfers sand, and sometimes, greedy as a forest fire, illness devours life. So it was with Evangeline’s fever. Healthy during the day, Evie felt weary in the evening and died with the dawn. Much later, her body cold, she came to herself. Flat on her back, arms heavy across her waist, she blinked in the thick-starless black. A coffin? She rasped, tried to draw breath and got none of the moist air inside the box with her. The sob she couldn’t quite contain broke free. She was dead, but this was no afterlife she’d ever fathomed. Let alone wanted. She’d died, yet her soul hadn’t departed. She tarried, stuck in flesh, as if her fervent desire to stay with her father held her. Like all other moments in her life, he’d been beside her just after dawn when her fever-blistered skin chilled and her heart sputtered to a halt.’

The only way to offer an adjective to describe Mia’s artistry is that she is a Wordsmith. The description of her characters and the derring-do that happens within the covers of this book capture the genre of vampires securely.

The plot? Mia’s summary describes it well – ‘It only takes one drink from the Water of Immortality to kill Evie Woods—halfway. Trapped in undead flesh, the world’s last skin-slider wakens on an island purgatory where a cursed spring bubbles with immortality, and zombie cannibals crave living flesh. Her only hope of escape rests in the hands of the one man who would see her fail. Lord Victor Lowell, the man of her dreams and darkest nightmares. Contrary and intractable, Victor preys on others to maintain his angelic charisma and preternatural prowess. Trapped in an ever-escalating war they can’t stop, Victor and Evie fight time for a cure, but as the long days pass, blackness tears at Evie, ripping her thoughts from her one memory at a time. Victor will do whatever it takes to prevent her from deteriorating into a rotting husk, even if it means dooming himself, but Evie won’t surrender his soul without a fight.’

A balanced mixture of romance and dystopia (‘a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding’). Mia has the medium down to a fare-thee-well. Excellent book and a fine opener for a series….

[C.J. Burright · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are so many things I love about Other Than, it's hard to know where to start. It's told in a point of view with an old fashioned flair - once the main character, Evie, said "zounds" I was in! Archaic words happen to be my catnip. To stay in that olden days thread, there was also an herbalist apothecary, and between him and Evie, you get some great natural remedies. Gardening, another of my favorite things (without the weeds, thank you very much). There's an antihero, my favorite type of hero, and horror among the romance. I'm not into sugary-sweet most of the time, so yeah. I was invested. But beneath all those goodies, the underlying themes of the story are what killed me (in a good way). There's the theme of redemption, that we're never too lost or too fallen to be saved. There's hope, that no matter how desperate and dark the world seems, you're never alone. There's conviction, that people are worth fighting for, no matter how unreachable they appear. These are things I can never be reminded of too often.

So, the story itself. Evie is a doctor's daughter, and not only is she his apprentice, she and her father are skin-sliders, the last of their kind. In other words, they're fey and can change their appearance at will. How cool is that? People have been getting sick and dying, and no one knows why. One day they're fine, they come down with a fever, and bam. Dead. Only not. They wake up later in various states of zombiehood. And Evie is the latest victim. With her fey nature, Evie isn't brain dead, nor is she exactly living, stuck in a limbo half-life. Just like our antihero, Lord Victor Lowell. She wakes up in a coffin on a ship bound to the sinister Lowell Island, somehow alive, and somehow mysteriously bonded to Victor. The sickness, the death, and her bond to Victor all seem connected, but Evie doesn't know how.

Lowell Island is rumored to be filled with wild cannibals and evil magic, and the truth isn't far off. The Lowell family rules the island and those unfortunate souls who die from the uncurable sickness only to wake up as zombies are brought to the island to work the plantation until a remedy is discovered by the gentle, honorable, hardworking island physician, Jessup. But the walls around the residence raise big questions, as do the bloodcurdling howls that echo beyond the walls, the flagging people serving the estate, and the malevolent statue overseeing them all. But once Evie meets Victor, the line between right and wrong is smudged in a big way. He's traded part of his soul for a dark magic that sustains him, and only Evie can save him, a hard task since she doesn't even know how to save herself.

"Between the quilt of fire, his gaze and hands, she was hunger and smoke and stormy seas."

This isn't a sweet romance by any stretch. There are glimpses into the darkest part of human nature. There are moments that make you shudder (zombies can do that...although I assure you the romance scenes contain no decaying body parts). There are moments that make you despair for everyone on the island. Good seems to fail when everything looks darkest. But the very end? Sweet indeed. If you're looking for a unique tale in a dystopian setting unlike any other, characters that scratch and claw to survive and save each other, I hope you give Other Than a shot.

[Linda Levine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very interesting story with lots of surprises. You have an island full of mysteries and madness. It really destroys those who enter the island. The family there operates like an old-fashioned plantation with slaves. The difference is these slaves have been exposed to something that makes them more dead than alive. You add in Evie who is a kind of fae that can alter her appearance and her connection to Lord Victor who is the son of the family that owns the island and you get a really intriguing mix of characters. I wasn't sure how it would all end but it felt right.

I am voluntarily reviewing a copy I received.

[Judi Easley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclaimer: The author provided me with an eARC of Other Than in exchange for an honest review, for which I am not being compensated in any way. All opinions are fully my own.
~ Judi E. Easley for Blue Cat Review

My Review:
I have never read a zombie novel before this, so it was all a new experience for me. It was interesting. And for a debut novel, amazing. The characters were fully involved. There was no standing around looking scary. Every single character had a function, a purpose.

Lowell Island is a dangerous place. It's run by a really scary lady, Lady Lowell. She has only one aim in life, and that's to ensure the survival of her son any way she can. Her son, Victor, is in love with Evie. Evie isn't exactly alive, as in human. She's a skin-slider. In her own form, she has gray skin, silver eyes, and is bald. She is the last of her kind. She has to almost die and lose her sense of reality to come out on the other side of all the violence and evil to be able to choose Victor and save them both.

Ms. Celeste creates very graphic scenes on the ship to the island and on the island. She shows you the mindless violence and how difficult it is for a zombie to stay alive among others. She shows their symbiotic relationships very well. Their need to feed to keep their humanity.

If zombies are your thing, give this one a try. I'm sure we'll be hearing more from this author in the future. Whether it's zombies or something else, it will be solidly written with a good plot and a lot of imagination.

[Sadie Forsythe · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
Slightly spoilerish

I will admit this wasn't anything like what I expected. The blurb's reference to escape left me expecting a grand, sweeping tale of attempting to get off the cannibalistic island. It's not that at all. In fact, it's setting and plot are small and intimate instead, taking place almost entirely within the confines of a single plantation, with a relatively small cast. The thing is that even if it wasn't what I expected I enjoyed it. It went directions I didn't expect. The writing is sharp and the narrator did an excellent job.

It's not without it's problems though. In fact, I'd call it flat out problematic in some of it's tropes and stereotypes. There's the fact that it's set on a plantation for one, and the hero is the lord of the manner. Now, the slaves in question aren't black people, they're the 'zombies.' But the people of color in the book are definitely represented in the same manner as slaves. They're derogatorily referred to as 'the darkies' at least once, though to be fair that language came from a villain. (Actually, now that I've said all that, it's never articulated that they aren't actually enslaved, so maybe they are in addition to the zombies, as opposed to instead of.) Either way, it's hard to see a slave owner as a hero and, while Victor is definitely shown to be trapped into doing some of the evil things he does, this one isn't addressed at all.

Then there are some of those black characters. Most are fairly characterless, but the cook isn't. She 100% fulfills the stock-character tropes of being both a "Mammy" and a "Magical Negro." Large, joyous and female (but stripped of any sense of sexuality) existing solely to assist the white characters and containing the mystical knowledge and sacrificial fortitude to save them all. (In a bit of a twist, this mystical knowledge is the Christian God.)

And since I touched on femaleness, I'll point out that, other than the heroine, there are three female characters. There's the Mammy. There's the hero's scorned previous lover (whose state of free vs. enslaved isn't clear, so calling her his mistress is iffy, but that's how she's referred to in the book) who is an enemy of the heroine. And there's the hero's harridan of a mother who is also an enemy to the heroine. A large part of the book's plot hinges on her anger at being a set-aside wife. So, all women who compete for a man's sexual favor are suspect, only sexless women are safe. Gee, that's a trope I've never seen in a book before. Not.

Lastly, there's the religious aspect of the book. The evil to be defeated is a 'native' mystical power, possibly goddess (again, can't trust those females), and the Mammy's Christian God is instrumental to saving the hero and heroine (who converts) and are therefore the only ones worthy of survival. I mean God doesn't come down in a fiery ball of save-your-ass or anything, there is a very real 'do for yourself' theme here. But the religious undertones are NOT subtle toward the end of the book.

File this book under sometimes you can enjoy something while recognizing that it has problematic aspects. This book 100% does. But it was still a largely enjoyable read.

Edit: I've just looked at a bigger image of the cover, such that I can actually read the tagline, which refers to a character as a slave. So, I suppose that answers the slave question.

[Bette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Other Than Dead! An Amazing Story!!

Other Than

By: Mia Jo Celeste
Narrated by: Keira Stevens

A unique & original story! Mia Jo Celeste is detail oriented and creates an imaginative world and characters. The storylines are interesting and beautifully written. They immediately grab your attention and hold it until the very end, keeping you at the edge of your seat at times. There is great character development, the author gives descriptive details of the supernatural creatures and how they came about. There was great chemistry between the leads, Evie and Victor, she was the good to his bad, they made a great team. This book is filled with a lot of action, drama, thrilling suspense, horror and some romance.

I listened tot he audible edition, Keira Stevens does a wonderful job narrating and telling the story. She performs the voices of all the characters and brings them to life from the pages to your ears. Thanks for another great listen!!

Thank you 🎧AudiobookObsession

[Sophie Koufes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audio review:
Other Than ensnared my attention with its cover & tagline. The synopsis showcases a intriguing tale with suspense ravelled throughout the narrative. A dystopian tale with a perfect balance of romance and dystopia. Zombie cannibals, vampires, human slaves, all interweaved into the narrative. With new twists, new races, & a whole new & scarier ways to look at zombies.

I think if there was music in the background it would have made the listen more enjoyable.

Narrator Kiera Stevens personify a british accent with a perfect pace and tone, no choppy parts. A pleasure to listen to.

Overall a enjoyable listen.

[Mandy Sawyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a non stop action packed book. I was a little lost to begin with but soon understood what was going on. There is literally no breathing room in this book. Good storyline, I’m still a little unsure on zombies but so much going on that’s easy to put aside!

[Jhommie Kem-ing · Rating 5 out of 5]

For the audiobook version

This novel is kind of weird! The story plot is very unusual and unique! I love it so much.. Very entering.❤

The narration by Keira Stevens is also very good.

[Angie ~aka Reading Machine~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Evangeline "Evie" Woods is a skin shifter that's headed for Lowell Island. Evie could never imagine the strange turn of events her life would follow. Victor Lowell knows that Evie is the love of his life and will do anything to protect her from harm including himself. Lowell Island is home to zombies and their leader. Evie discovers secrets best left alone but determined to move forward anyway. All Victor wants to do is protect Evie at any cost. Can Evie save Victor from himself? What secrets does Lowell Island hold? Your answers await you in Other Than.

This is a very good zombie book. I'm usually not a fan of zombie books but this one easily changed my mind quickly. The characters and story held my attention and was compelling, down to earth, and fascinating. I look forward to more from this author in the future.