Rating: 5 out of 5 In Stephen Graham Jones’s Mongrels: A Novel, werewolves are real. Our young teenaged protagonist listens to his grandfather’s crazy stories about being a werewolf, and later realizes there were secrets and lessons hidden in each…
Rating: 5 out of 5 In Stephen Graham Jones’s Mongrels: A Novel, werewolves are real. Our young teenaged protagonist listens to his grandfather’s crazy stories about being a werewolf, and later realizes there were secrets and lessons hidden in each…
Pros: Some decent humans-fighting-werewolves material; one unexpectedly interesting character Cons: See below… Rating: 2 out of 5 Matt Serafini’s Feral: A Novel of Werewolf Horror picks up in some ways toward the end, but unfortunately, by then it’s really too…
Pros: Plenty of great plot twists and turns; intriguing world-building Cons: … Rating: 5 out of 5 Geonn Cannon’s Underdogs is part of a series about a werewolf private investigator (Ariadne Willow) and her human assistant, Dale Frye. I’m not…
Pros: Standard but decent storyline and a couple of decent characters Cons: Slapstick humor bits; inappropriate humor bits; forced humor bits; writing so-so Rating: 2 out of 5 Heath Stallcup’s Return of the Phoenix: A Monster Squad Novel (Volume 1)…
Pros: Fascinating concept Cons: Some definite plot holes Rating: 2.5 out of 5 In Michael Phillip Cash’s Monsterland the tone of the tale starts out… overwrought. Purple. Melodramatic. Thankfully this improved over the course of the story. The melodrama is…
Pros: Humor, long odds, intricate relationships Cons: … Rating: 4 out of 5 Ilona Andrews’s Sweep In Peace (Innkeeper Chronicles) (Volume 2) tells the story of Gertrude Hunt (a sentient inn, apparently) and her keeper, Dina. Gertrude only has one…
Pros: Creative and fascinating Cons: … Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Ilona Andrews’s Clean Sweep, the first book in a new series, reminds me superficially of Tanya Huff’s Keeper series. Dina runs a bed and breakfast that caters to unusual…
Pros: Interesting premise with plenty of action Cons: I missed some of the series main characters Rating: 4 out of 5 Unbinding, by Eileen Wilks, follows
Pros: Interesting new stakes and threat Cons: Later on in the book I would have liked to see a little more of Julia Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Ritual Magic is book ten in Eileen Wilks’s “World of the Lupi”.…
Pros: Wonderful characters, plot, pacing… Cons: … Rating: 5 out of 5 Anne Bishop’s Written in Red is the first book in her series “The Others”. The terra indigene include such creatures as werewolves, vampires, and some far more frightening…