Rebel Heart: Dust Lands, Book 2

Plenty of death, ghosts, and images of death in this barren and somewhat lawless land. Most of the more violent actions -- a whole camp getting shot in the head, a woman raped and then branded -- are barely described after the fact. Three more visceral descriptions involve a head in a caldron with half its features missing, a man nailed to a tree with a spike in his throat, and skin rubbed raw and bloody in a delusional fit. Characters are chased by wolves and headhunters with blow darts and attacked by snakes and soldiers with guns and explosives. Mostly enemies die, but there are a couple of sad deaths and a gunshot wound. Saba uses a bow and arrow to kill her enemies. One woman clings to her dead baby, with talk that others are taken from women to be trained, the weak ones left to die. Much talk of when Saba and Lugh lost their mother (in childbirth) and father (shot by the enemy). Saba is haunted by the dead and visits a Shaman to help her stop seeing ghosts.

Three different couples (18 and up) have sex, one woman is a prostitute, but only one encounter is described at all, skipping from kissing to waking up naked. Plenty of sexual innuendo, some not so subtle by a prostitute offering her services to Lugh for free.

Some rough language fits the rough grammar of the book. There's lots of "damn," "gawdamn," and "hell," with handfuls of "sonofabitch" and "bastard." Nothing beyond that.

Molly's bar serves some strong homemade whiskey that gets pulled out and drunk by characters a few times. Emmi (10 years old) takes a drink one time. Saba drinks a few glasses of wine before sleeping with someone. A prostitute smokes a cigar. Lugh takes a made-up drug called chaal.