This book certainly had an interesting premise. It's essentially created around a metaphor of death. A group of women live in an isolated place with strict traditions (other tribes show up enough for them to have babies who are occasionally male and occasionally stay, but usually leave because men have no power, they think). A big part of their lives involves keeping the dead from attacking. No, not zombies. More like something a bit more material than ghosts than are hurtful, and which come in three varieties, the worst being the White Hands whose touch is deadly.

Otter, the main character, is a Binder, which means she works magic to control the dead. This magic takes the form of a sort of cat's cradle, which is interesting, but of course it's sometimes hard to really picture how it all works. It seems sort of a no-brainer early on that perhaps having a tradition of BINDING the dead (to keep them away) might actually be a mistake--this is grief counseling 101, it seems. But Otter's quest to figure out what's going on by returning to the abandoned ancestral home of her people makes for a logical quest.

The pace is very slow and steady, like the beat of a story-teller's drum, and that's obviously intentional. Certain phrases and stories are repeated a lot, which will either work for you or not. It's also a little funny that we're told that having a mate (okishae I think the word is in their language) is a totally odd thing, yet Otter's two bffs happen to be that to each other, and then another boy shows up who sure seems like he'll wind up as hers. I guess that idea was really more about having an mostly-female tribe than an aromantic society.