Author Frank W. Smith sent me an e-copy of his werewolf vs. vampire novel Wolf Song (Wolf Song Trilogy #1).

Partial description from Goodreads:
One decision may save a life, but a single death can start a war. The vampires and werewolves have lived in a strained co-existence with one another for centuries. They have their territories. They know their boundaries. All this comes to an abrupt end when one reckless vampire ignores the rules that have been followed for ages. 

Review:

Wolf Song is religious fiction at its best, when you don’t realise it is. When the burly werewolf, Jon, kills a vampire in an attempt to stop an innocent bystander from become dinner, he unwittingly starts a supernatural war.

On the surface, this book could be read as the old vampires versus werewolves tale. Look a little deeper, and you’ll find notable similarities between vampires and demons (as seen by Christianity). The werewolves look a lot like men fighting the daily temptation to give in to their baser desires and then there are the ‘crows.’ A Catholic sect dedicated to protecting humanity from the demonic influences and willing to work with and save as many werewolves as possible. Anyone else seeing the religious correlations? Yeah, me too. I can’t know that this is what the author intended…well, I guess I could ask, but I haven’t, so I don’t. I felt it was pretty clear tough. I’m not particularly religious, but I still really enjoyed the book. I acknowledge the underlying theme but never felt proselytised to.

Those characters meant to be likable were likable (I was especially fond of The Horseman), and those that were meant not to be weren’t. There were few grey characters. You pretty much knew where everyone stood at all times. The ‘vampires bad, werewolves good’ was maybe a little heavy-handed, but not nauseatingly so.

The writing was clear and easy to follow. There were a few 10-gallon words, and you might as well look ‘umbra’ up beforehand. You’ll need to know it. But I always enjoy writing that has a little vocabulary enhancement to it. This is a plus for me. Not everyone likes it, so just go in knowing, and all should be ok. While maybe not the feel-good book of the year, Wolf Song is well worth reading.