Tenai had come into Dr. Dodson's care raging with a fury so tightly contained that a casual glance might have judged her calm. She was not calm. Daniel did not need to be told this. He knew it from the first moment he saw her. [p.2]
Daniel Dodson is a gifted psychiatrist who's mourning the death of his wife, and struggling to raise their daughter Jenna. He's also fouled his professional record by whistleblowing an abusive colleague. Now he's working at a smaller institution, Lindenwood, where his first patient is a mute 'Jane Doe' who was found on the highway, threatening vehicles with a sword. She cannot be identified, and nobody can communicate with her.
Daniel persuades her to speak. Her name is Tenai, and the tale she tells is a fantastical account of another world where she made a bargain with Lord Death and avenged her family over a lifespan of centuries. Dr Dodson, eminently sensible, diagnoses her thus: "I think you encountered something in this world that you couldn’t live with, and so you invented another world to be from." He doesn't seem to notice the bursts of static that accompany her flashes of rage, or the way she only picks red flowers, from beds where no red flowers are planted. But the reader knows more than Daniel from the very first page... I'm still not sure if that's a good thing or not!
I was drawn into Tenai's story, and into her therapy, and into her growing respect and liking for Daniel Dodson. Sadly, that's only the first half of the book: the second half, though interesting -- Tenai, released from Lindenwood, becomes a martial arts instructor -- wasn't as interesting to me. I think what I liked most was the sense of worlds colliding, of Daniel's mild-mannered rationalism and Tenai's dark, epic history. She was less interesting when she'd faced the truth about her emotions.
I'd read more, though: there are another five books in the series, and from the brief excerpt included with The Year's Midnight, I believe Tenai will be going home. Or back.
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