Tag Archives: werewolf

Book Review: Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater

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ShiverI picked up a copy of  Maggie Stiefvater‘s werewolf novel, Shiver, at the local used bookstore. It’s been taking up space on my shelves for a while now, but when it came up as the monthly group read of one of my Goodreads groups, I decided that its time had come.

Description from Goodreads:
For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf—her wolf—is a chilling presence she can’t seem to live without.

Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few precious months of being human… until the cold makes him shift back again.

Now, Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away. It’s her wolf. It has to be. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human—or risk losing himself, and Grace, forever.

Review:
This is an eery, poignant read. It feels like something M. Night Shyamalan would have a hand in, minus the horror. But, like the almost missable wolf on the cover, you feel the odd camera angles and barely perceptible background music that incites the reader to feel overlooked. It gives the book a real sense of atmosphere.

The writing is absolutely beautiful. One of the characters likes to compose songs, and the whole thing reads a little like his lyrics. It’s pretty, and it flows well, but I have to admit that after a while, it wore on me a little bit. I think purple prose is the correct term to use here. Everything is over-described, flowery to the umpteenth degree. Again, it’s beautiful, but I could have done with a few hundred fewer similes. No one just walked into a room. They walked into a room like an avenging angel, or soft winter wind, or rolling thunder. I’m making these up, but you get the point.

The two main characters are generally likable—Sam especially. It would be hard not to like someone as gentle (and fragile) as he is. He is well-complimented by Grace, and together, they feel fated. I would have really liked to get to know the rest of the pack better. You get almost nothing of them in this book. I expect they will play a bigger role in future books, though.

All in all, I’m glad to have read it. I probably would have let it linger on the shelf forever if it hadn’t been a group read. I’m glad it got bumped up. As an aside, I rather liked the subtle blue ink of the text that matched the cover so well. A fun detail.

Once Bitten

Book Review of Trina M. Lee’s Once Bitten (Huntress, #1) and prequel shorts

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Once Bitten

I grabbed a free copy of Trina M. Lee‘s Once Bitten from the KDP list. It is currently still free on Amazon and at Smashwords.

Description from Goodreads:
Alexa O’Brien has never been like other people. A hunter of supernatural rogues, she is a werewolf with unusual but extraordinary power. Power that draws her to Arys Knight, the mysterious vampire who awakens her dark side. What they create together is dangerous and binding, forcing her to question the source of her abilities. It threatens not only her remaining humanity, but her relationship with fellow werewolf, Shaz Richardson, as well.

When Alexa’s womanizing former lover and the Alpha of her pack is framed for murder, he draws public attention that could earn him a death sentence unless she steps in to help him. Alexa would love to watch karma at work but as the body count rises, long buried secrets are exposed. She’s forced to face the painful truth that not everyone is who she thinks they are.

Review:
I have pretty mixed feelings here. There were some parts of this book I really liked, for example the fact that Lee let her main characters be bad. So often PNR heroines miraculously resist all evil temptation. I really appreciated that Alexa gave in to hers and admitted that she enjoyed watching Arys too. It added an element of edgy realism that I enjoyed. I also loved both Arys and Shaz. Unfortunately I hated the situation they found themselves in. It wasn’t fair to either of them. Of course, it wasn’t meant to be, but I found it painfully uncomfortable. I really wanted her to choose one or for the three of them to become a happy Ménage à trois.

I generally enjoyed the story, but I have two main complaints. One, it felt like there were four main story lines that ran parallel but never really intersected. There was Alexa and Arys’ situation. There was her and Shaz’s budding romance. There was her night job with Veryl and there was the whole mystery with Raoul. Any one of them probably could have been a book on its own. Well, maybe the love triangle would need to be combined, but you know what I’m getting at. The Raoul situation seemed to be the main storyline, so any time Alexa ran off to fight a random demon or psychotic ex-lover I found it distracting. It essentially felt like it had nothing to do with the rest of the plot. Plus the events required the introduction of random characters who then simply disappeared, Lilah for example.

Two, there was a lot of presumed knowledge. Alexas is described as a werewolf with extra, vampireish abilities. But these are never really described. I have no idea which of her powers were the unusual ones or why she had them. Similarly, I never really understood her and Arys’ metaphysical draw. I certainly understood the effect, but not the why, how, or even what of it. I would have really liked a more in-depth description.

I did enjoy it. Don’t get me wrong. There were just a few things that niggled at me. I have the prequels to read and will consider continuing the series.

Huntress

Stunner

I also grabbed the prequels Huntress and Stunner, at least one of which is available free at Amazon & Smashwords. You can follow the links to see my reviews at Goodreads. I thought they were both ok, but not stand-alone stories. They would make little sense to someone who hadn’t read Once Bitten. 

Cry Baby Hollow

Book Review of Aimee Love’s Cry Baby Hollow

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Cry Baby Hollow

I grabbed Aimee Love‘s Cry Baby Hollow from the Amazon KDP list recently.

Description from Goodreads:
There are things we all know about werewolves:
-The only way to become a werewolf is to be bitten by one.
-They only come out on the full moon.
-They can only be killed with a silver bullet.
-They are not real.

But when Aubrey Guinn comes to Eastern Tennessee to help Vina, an aging family friend, werewolves are the furthest things from her mind. She is preoccupied with more mundane concerns, like keeping Vina’s ingrate step-children from putting her in a nursing home, avoiding the advances of her handsome but dim witted neighbor, and keeping her mailbox away from the good old boys baseball bats. It isn’t until Aubrey finds the body of a local boy, gruseomely murdered, that she begins to see that life in the country is anything but slow, and werewolves are far from what Hollywood had led her to expect.

Review:
Cry Baby Hollow was a surprisingly good read. I say surprisingly because there are so many werewolf books on the market these days and almost all of them seem to be small variations of the same story. This one is not one of those. For one it isn’t about some dimwitted heroine falling hard for another testosterone crazed alpha wolf. Thank you sweet baby HeyZeus for variety. I would hesitate to even call this paranormal romance, except that it does have paranormal creatures in it and there is some romance. Either way it’s a lot of fun, if a little slow at times.

Ms. Love has created an interesting story, with engaging characters and some true regional humour. I can say that too. I happen to be from Tennessee. There was a lot of genuine southern culture depicted here, but there were a few inevitable stereotypes too. Sadly, there’s often a grain of truth in even them so I can’t fault the book for that.

I did have a few gripes though. While I loved Aubrey’s sharp tongue and quick wit, it didn’t always feel realistic. Old women like Vina can get away with being so acerbic, younger ones haven’t earned the social right yet. On more than one occasion I laughed at some cut down or defiant act of Aubrey’s (’cause they are funny and fist pumpingly “right on”), then thought, ‘what a bitch.’ She was just too quick to jump onto the offence. Plus, since you are given so little of Aubrey’s history upfront it felt a little like all of her considerable skill came unearned. Of course she’s supposed to have spent 10+ years in the Navy. No doubt she worked hard for them, but you don’t feel it.

I loved, loved, loved Joe, but there’s a fairly drastic change in his personality about halfway through the book and I was a little disappointed in that. It was predictable really, but I still much preferred his Good ‘Ol Boy self to his cleaned up self. I also wondered why he knew the area so much better than Aubrey if he’d been vacationing there for 10 years, but she’d been visiting her whole life. Seemed a little backwards.

Lastly, some important events were strangely glossed over: almost anything bedroom related, Aubrey’s days in the hospital which marked a sharp change in the tone of the book, her first training with Vina and pals that allowed her to fight on an even playing field with the baddy. All of them are game changers to the plot, but none of them are given to the reader. Their absence tended to make the events following them feel like abrupt shifts even when they really weren’t.

These are all fairly minor complaints in the grand scheme of things though. I have no hesitation about recommending Cry Baby Hollow book. It’s well worth reading.