Mishell Baker
Author of Borderline
Series
Works by Mishell Baker
Throwing Stones [short fiction] 2 copies
Associated Works
The Best of Beneath Ceaseless Skies Online Magazine, Year Two (2011) — Contributor — 5 copies, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1976
- Gender
- agender
- Agent
- Russell Galen
- Short biography
- Mishell Baker is a 2009 graduate of the Clarion Fantasy & Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop. Her short fiction has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Daily Science Fiction, Redstone Science Fiction, and Electric Velocipede.
Her urban fantasy series The Arcadia Project is being released by Simon & Schuster’s Saga imprint, beginning with Borderline. The series is narrated by Millicent Roper, a snarky double-amputee and suicide survivor who works with a ragtag collection of society’s least-wanted, keeping the world safe from the chaotic whims of supernatural beasties.
When Mishell isn’t convention-hopping or going on wild research adventures, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two changelings. When her offspring are older, she will probably remember what her hobbies are. In the meantime, she enjoys sending and receiving old-fashioned handwritten paper letters. - Nationality
- USA
- Places of residence
- Los Angeles Area, California, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- California, USA
Members
Reviews
This was a good fantasy, with interesting worldbuilding and intriguing problem-solving, and the huge bonus of an unusual hero. Millie's survived a suicide attempt, got through a lot of therapy after healing and learning to live with scaring and two prosthetics, and now faces the challenge of learning about Faerie when we meet her.
Millie also has Borderline Personality Disorder. I knew someone with BPD. Some of the character's observations hit me pretty hard. I had to walk away from the book show more a few times to let it process. (The person I knew in real life left some scarring of her own.) That effect on a reader is a plus - the author got it right. Eerily so. If you've known someone with the disorder but didn't know it, Millie may well teach you what you were experiencing. Again, this isn't bad! Understanding helps everyone. show less
Millie also has Borderline Personality Disorder. I knew someone with BPD. Some of the character's observations hit me pretty hard. I had to walk away from the book show more a few times to let it process. (The person I knew in real life left some scarring of her own.) That effect on a reader is a plus - the author got it right. Eerily so. If you've known someone with the disorder but didn't know it, Millie may well teach you what you were experiencing. Again, this isn't bad! Understanding helps everyone. show less
Originally posted on Just Geeking by.
Content warnings:
This book is about a character who attempted suicide by jumping from a tall building and survived. Her suicide attempt is discussed in detail as is her mental health, her diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (BPD) and the mental health conditions of other characters in the book. This includes a scene with self harm. This is an ownvoices novel and mental health and disability are handled with respect. As the author has BPD herself show more the accuracy of the mental health representations in this novel may trigger some people with mental health conditions. If you are feeling particularly vulnerable right now then this may not be the best read for you. I say that with love and kindness as someone who has anxiety and depression.
There are also scenes of violence, blood and death. There are scenes of verbal abuse in the book and one of the characters was abused as a child which is not on page but does come up in conversation. Ableism, casual racism, gaslighting, and bullying are also present in this book.
I reviewed this book as part of GeekDis 2022 an event discussing disability representation in pop culture from the perspective of the disabled and neurodivergent community.
Please note that this review discusses mental health and suicide in detail from the very start.
If you are feeling particularly vulnerable right now then this may not be the best read for you. I say that with love and kindness as someone who has anxiety and depression. I do not want anyone to be triggered because of me
Millicent, Millie Roper, is in a psychiatric centre when we first meet her. She has been there for six months after surviving a failed suicide which resulted in her losing both her legs. That’s where magic first walks into her life, as she tells us, and it is in the form of a stranger who offers her a job. It’s very cloak and dagger, but it’s Millie’s only way out of centre. At some point the funding is going to run out and with no close family or friends no one else is queuing up to offer her a place to go. The woman is also offering her a chance to break back into the film industry, a career path that Millie thought was forever closed to her. A big selling point is that The Arcadia Project is specifically looking for people who are mentally ill and Millie fits that bill one hundred perfect; she has borderline personality disorder (BPD).
Taking the chance Millie is prepared for disappointment, what she’s not ready for is to be introduced to the world of magic and to find out that fairies exist. The Arcadia Project is really a secret organization that polices the traffic to and from a parallel reality filled with creatures straight out of myth and fairy tales; the fey. They help Fey and humans find their Echoes, a platonic soulmate on the opposite reality that completes them and enhances their creative talent. Humans become stars, and fey gain more substance. Without human Echoes fey drift around as if in a dream.
Given a simple first assignment with her partner, to find a missing sidhe noble, it of course turns out to be anything but simple. There’s a terrifying conspiracy going on, one that goes much deeper than anyone at her new place of work realises. All the while Millie is struggling with her mental health, she’s living with multiple strangers all of whom are mentally ill as well and in a house that is not accessible.
I was completely blown away by every single aspect of this book. Baker herself has BPD, which I suspected from the way Millie has been written, but I didn’t confirm until after I completed the book. It’s something that Baker talks about openly on her blog and there is a great interview here where she talks about why she chose to write about BPD.
While I’m familiar with mental health, I’m not with BPD, so I appreciated the insight into the condition through Millie. Millie is not a reliable narrator, she sometimes isn’t even a likeable character with Baker pointing out her casual racism multiple times. There are a lot of flawed characters in Borderline and Baker excels at showing them in all their imperfect glory. There is one character who I couldn’t stand, who reminded me of a lot of people I have known in my life, and yet I ended up feeling things for them that I did not expect because Baker showed the other side of them.
Likewise, I cannot comment on the authenticity of the representation of a double amputee and prosthetic user. What I can say is that it was wonderful to see so much detail, to see Millie’s prosthetics, mobility aids and accessibility needs always at the forefront. There is a scene when Millie has an embarrassing accident in public and has to call a relative stranger for help. It was such a raw moment that I know a lot of writers would have shied away from for many reasons, however, it was an incredibly important one for disability representation. Scenes like that need to be included not hidden away because no one wants to “see that”. These are our lives, these things do happen, and that authenticity is in every word of this novel.
The world building is also top-notch with a wonderful and vibrant new fey mythos and magic systems that I thoroughly enjoyed. Borderline was a great read all round read with authentic representation!
BLOG | REVIEWS | REVIEW SCHEDULE | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | PINTEREST |
show less
Content warnings:
There are also scenes of violence, blood and death. There are scenes of verbal abuse in the book and one of the characters was abused as a child which is not on page but does come up in conversation. Ableism, casual racism, gaslighting, and bullying are also present in this book.
I reviewed this book as part of GeekDis 2022 an event discussing disability representation in pop culture from the perspective of the disabled and neurodivergent community.
Please note that this review discusses mental health and suicide in detail from the very start.
If you are feeling particularly vulnerable right now then this may not be the best read for you. I say that with love and kindness as someone who has anxiety and depression. I do not want anyone to be triggered because of me
Millicent, Millie Roper, is in a psychiatric centre when we first meet her. She has been there for six months after surviving a failed suicide which resulted in her losing both her legs. That’s where magic first walks into her life, as she tells us, and it is in the form of a stranger who offers her a job. It’s very cloak and dagger, but it’s Millie’s only way out of centre. At some point the funding is going to run out and with no close family or friends no one else is queuing up to offer her a place to go. The woman is also offering her a chance to break back into the film industry, a career path that Millie thought was forever closed to her. A big selling point is that The Arcadia Project is specifically looking for people who are mentally ill and Millie fits that bill one hundred perfect; she has borderline personality disorder (BPD).
Taking the chance Millie is prepared for disappointment, what she’s not ready for is to be introduced to the world of magic and to find out that fairies exist. The Arcadia Project is really a secret organization that polices the traffic to and from a parallel reality filled with creatures straight out of myth and fairy tales; the fey. They help Fey and humans find their Echoes, a platonic soulmate on the opposite reality that completes them and enhances their creative talent. Humans become stars, and fey gain more substance. Without human Echoes fey drift around as if in a dream.
Given a simple first assignment with her partner, to find a missing sidhe noble, it of course turns out to be anything but simple. There’s a terrifying conspiracy going on, one that goes much deeper than anyone at her new place of work realises. All the while Millie is struggling with her mental health, she’s living with multiple strangers all of whom are mentally ill as well and in a house that is not accessible.
I was completely blown away by every single aspect of this book. Baker herself has BPD, which I suspected from the way Millie has been written, but I didn’t confirm until after I completed the book. It’s something that Baker talks about openly on her blog and there is a great interview here where she talks about why she chose to write about BPD.
While I’m familiar with mental health, I’m not with BPD, so I appreciated the insight into the condition through Millie. Millie is not a reliable narrator, she sometimes isn’t even a likeable character with Baker pointing out her casual racism multiple times. There are a lot of flawed characters in Borderline and Baker excels at showing them in all their imperfect glory. There is one character who I couldn’t stand, who reminded me of a lot of people I have known in my life, and yet I ended up feeling things for them that I did not expect because Baker showed the other side of them.
Likewise, I cannot comment on the authenticity of the representation of a double amputee and prosthetic user. What I can say is that it was wonderful to see so much detail, to see Millie’s prosthetics, mobility aids and accessibility needs always at the forefront. There is a scene when Millie has an embarrassing accident in public and has to call a relative stranger for help. It was such a raw moment that I know a lot of writers would have shied away from for many reasons, however, it was an incredibly important one for disability representation. Scenes like that need to be included not hidden away because no one wants to “see that”. These are our lives, these things do happen, and that authenticity is in every word of this novel.
The world building is also top-notch with a wonderful and vibrant new fey mythos and magic systems that I thoroughly enjoyed. Borderline was a great read all round read with authentic representation!
BLOG | REVIEWS | REVIEW SCHEDULE | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | PINTEREST |
show less
There's a lot to love about this UF that refuses to bow down to the usual expectations.
But then, this series does follow a *certain* set of expectations. For one, it completely relies on all types of mental illness to drive character arcs. It's not just the MC who is bipolar, who had attempted suicide, lost her legs, and yet still manages to use her head and save the day as a productive (if often very destructive) employee in a Fae (be it Seele or Unseele court) world. Ahem. Excuse me. show more Worlds. This takes place in both the Fae lands and LA (with some travel around the world).
This has got to be the most wildly diverse novel I've ever read. Not only mental spectrums are accounted for, but sexual, social, and ideological. Everyone has a place and usually they all want to murder each other or are willing to do it in a more socially acceptable (if also very destructive) way. :)
In this novel, we have a great Heist fiction with a wildly diverse cast and I'm frankly amazed that any of these characters function well enough to cause the amount of damage they do. And that's not even accounting for the damage they *intended* to do.
I'm caught in admiration for this novel and the series while also being a bit flabbergasted at the same time. It has good writing and it's always pretty entertaining, but I don't want it to always be about the mental damage. Even that which makes this unique can be overdone.
Still, it straddles the line and succeeds for the majority for me. :) show less
But then, this series does follow a *certain* set of expectations. For one, it completely relies on all types of mental illness to drive character arcs. It's not just the MC who is bipolar, who had attempted suicide, lost her legs, and yet still manages to use her head and save the day as a productive (if often very destructive) employee in a Fae (be it Seele or Unseele court) world. Ahem. Excuse me. show more Worlds. This takes place in both the Fae lands and LA (with some travel around the world).
This has got to be the most wildly diverse novel I've ever read. Not only mental spectrums are accounted for, but sexual, social, and ideological. Everyone has a place and usually they all want to murder each other or are willing to do it in a more socially acceptable (if also very destructive) way. :)
In this novel, we have a great Heist fiction with a wildly diverse cast and I'm frankly amazed that any of these characters function well enough to cause the amount of damage they do. And that's not even accounting for the damage they *intended* to do.
I'm caught in admiration for this novel and the series while also being a bit flabbergasted at the same time. It has good writing and it's always pretty entertaining, but I don't want it to always be about the mental damage. Even that which makes this unique can be overdone.
Still, it straddles the line and succeeds for the majority for me. :) show less
'Borderline' is an unusual book. The premise, someone joining a secret global organisation that polices the border between our world and the world of the Fae, sounds fairly traditional in an MIB-with-a-twist sort of way, so I expected either a thriller of the 24-hours-to-save-the-earth kind or something humorous or hybrid of the two. What I got was more interesting: a book focused on someone who is broken and who is trying to find a reason to keep living. The borderline that the title refers show more to isn't just between Earth and Arcadia but between normal behaviour and psychotic behaviour.
Milie, our protagonist (heroine doesn't really fit here), has Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) which, amongst other things, makes her subject to intense mood swings and impulsive behaviour. This partially explains why Millie, a film director with a couple of successful Indie productions behind her, ended her time at the prestigious UCLA School of Theatre, Film and Television by jumping from a building, She failed to kill herself but succeeded in destroying both of her legs.
When, six months later, after having mastered her prosthetic limbs but not her trauma, Millie is approached by the Arcadia Project (the secret global organisation that polices the Fae border - the Brits are blamed for the classical name), she is told it is because her BPD allows her to see the world differently and makes her better able to cope with the Fae and their glamours. Only when she has started to invest her personal salvation in her new role does she learn that the Arcadia Project recruits throwaway people. People who won't be believed if they try to reveal the Project's secrets. People who won't be missed if the get killed in the Project's service. People like Millie.
I enjoyed the world-building as Millie learns about the Fae and the deal the humans have cut with them. I had to smile at the all-too-plausible relationship between the Fae and Hollywood.
I admired the character-building. I felt that I got inside Millie's rather unusual head and saw the world through her eyes. Her relationships with the people around her, turbulent, distorted but deeply-felt, brought the book alive.
The mystery/thriller plot around missing Fae and evil intrigue which moves the action forward works mostly to reveal the Fae/human connections and to push Millie into confronting who she is and who she's going to choose to become.
If you're looking for a fast-paced, high body count Urban Fantasy thriller, 'Borderline' isn't it. If you're looking for something original and thoughtful with an emotional payload, you'll enjoy this.
'Borderline' is the first book in a series. I intend to visit Millie's world again to see what she's made of herself.
I recommend the audiobook version of 'Borderline'. Arden Hammersmith did a great job as the narrator and made Millie a real voice in my head. Click on the SoundCloud link below to hear a sample.
https://soundcloud.com/simonschuster/borderline-audiobook-excerpt show less
Milie, our protagonist (heroine doesn't really fit here), has Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) which, amongst other things, makes her subject to intense mood swings and impulsive behaviour. This partially explains why Millie, a film director with a couple of successful Indie productions behind her, ended her time at the prestigious UCLA School of Theatre, Film and Television by jumping from a building, She failed to kill herself but succeeded in destroying both of her legs.
When, six months later, after having mastered her prosthetic limbs but not her trauma, Millie is approached by the Arcadia Project (the secret global organisation that polices the Fae border - the Brits are blamed for the classical name), she is told it is because her BPD allows her to see the world differently and makes her better able to cope with the Fae and their glamours. Only when she has started to invest her personal salvation in her new role does she learn that the Arcadia Project recruits throwaway people. People who won't be believed if they try to reveal the Project's secrets. People who won't be missed if the get killed in the Project's service. People like Millie.
I enjoyed the world-building as Millie learns about the Fae and the deal the humans have cut with them. I had to smile at the all-too-plausible relationship between the Fae and Hollywood.
I admired the character-building. I felt that I got inside Millie's rather unusual head and saw the world through her eyes. Her relationships with the people around her, turbulent, distorted but deeply-felt, brought the book alive.
The mystery/thriller plot around missing Fae and evil intrigue which moves the action forward works mostly to reveal the Fae/human connections and to push Millie into confronting who she is and who she's going to choose to become.
If you're looking for a fast-paced, high body count Urban Fantasy thriller, 'Borderline' isn't it. If you're looking for something original and thoughtful with an emotional payload, you'll enjoy this.
'Borderline' is the first book in a series. I intend to visit Millie's world again to see what she's made of herself.
I recommend the audiobook version of 'Borderline'. Arden Hammersmith did a great job as the narrator and made Millie a real voice in my head. Click on the SoundCloud link below to hear a sample.
https://soundcloud.com/simonschuster/borderline-audiobook-excerpt show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 4
- Also by
- 2
- Members
- 927
- Popularity
- #27,686
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 68
- ISBNs
- 21
- Favorited
- 1