Julie is a librarian and a single mother with a newborn and
just coming to grips with that. When, one full moon, her baby turns into a wolf
pup.
Utterly confused she clings to the one person who may
have answers – the father of her child. Only to find Mac is dead, murdered –
and he’s not the first werewolf from his pack who has been targeted. And whoever
took those wolves are now targeting her baby
This is one of those books where it’s a little weird that
the protagonist is involved. I mean, Julie is human, completely human no
special abilities, and she has an infant child in tow. Yes that baby has been
threated and it’s understandable that she would want to stop this threat – but
running towards it, playing amateur detective in a strange city with unknown
enemies while carrying a baby along with you? That doesn’t seem reasonable or
sensible. She’s not just running into danger like so many Urban Fantasy
protagonist – but she decided to bring her baby along for the ride.
It’s one of the underlying issues of this book which can
be hard to follow –the constant question of why the protagonist is even here.
Why is she involved, why is she making decisions in this situation she knows so
little about – it’s a perennial problem whenever we have a human protagonist in
a supernatural book.
But it sits alongside a whole lot of things that are done
so well. After all one of the minor conflicts of this book is Julie feeling so
very out of place among the werewolves and the witches and being depreciating –
without a huge amount of angst – in her own abilities, but still finding her
own ways to contribute and help.
The leader of the werewolf pack is a woman. Yes, an
actual woman alpha – and she openly pokes at the whole idea of a big hair man
who would have to lead a werewolf pack. And there is a moment of girlhate with
Julie deciding to make massive assumptions about Lilly because of her
appearance – deciding she looks like “a stripper” and being generally shamy and
contemptuous. But it’s all subverted by the fact she is the alpha and clearly
powerful and capable and a more than decent leader. Julie’s prejudiced
judgement are exposed to be exactly what they are in the face of her capability
And the main characters joining Julie in her mission to
find out what happened to Mac (her ex) are both women – there’s Sheila her
lifelong friend with her own supernatural secrets and Eliza a female werewolf
(multiple female werewolves! It’s odd to say but this genre seems to have
almost adopted a law that all werewolves must be male which makes this both so
special and unique) with a lot of power and strength. In both cases – and with another
female werewolf (another one!) companion of Mac’s, Julie does have moments of
jealousy and feelings of inadequacy, thinking how much more attractive they are
than her. But it’s presented very much that it’s her own insecurities being
unreasonable rather than any actual fault on the part of the women. And Julie recognises
it in herself as well and works through it.
I like the world building that goes into adding some
level of depth to werewolf culture, some more elements and mysticism and the
general moving away from werewolves and sheer physicality, violence and brutality
that is so common. At the same time I would have liked to know more about it –
and witchcraft – part of me thinks that Julie asked very few questions
considering this whole supernatural world opened up in front of her and her baby
boy is apparently part of it but at the same time given the immediacy of the
threats she had to deal with and the new reality she had to absorb I can
equally understand why she put all of that on the back burner. I think we can
see that in the way she looks to integrate herself into the supernatural first
before learning about the world as a whole. And on that – I have to say I
absolutely love how she didn’t just leap at the hyper risky way she could be
more fully part of the supernatural world. I mean, in this genre how many
protagonist hear “you can do this but there’s a 50% chance you’ll die” and
instantly leap at the chance, confident in all of their lovely plot armour?
Julie is more sensible than that
In fact, except for her very presence in the
investigation, Julie is a very human, very sensible, very reality based
character.
We have a couple of POC – the first is a Black man, a
werewolf investigator and probably the most present and involved male character
in the book. The presence of these eager amateurs into his investigation in no
way was used to detract from his competence or skill –far from it. They didn’t
turn him into the bumbling inept failure to make them look good – instead they
all worked together with competence and skill.
We also have an Asian woman – she only plays a brief role
– but she’s a lone wolf and a cat lady. How rare is that? Aside from the whole
idea of a werewolf cat lady it also showed a werewolf society that people can
opt out of, sensibly and safely - that subtle piece of world building makes a
big point about overall werewolf society (again, I feel this book does an
excellent job of having little moments like this to look at what the genre has
said werewolves have to be and subverting it).
There are no LGBT characters
The plot itself is a nicely paced and interesting investigation,
it does an excellent job of revealing a lot of the world and the principle
characters while having a story that has action and tension and lots of
pressure without dragging out too long (which can be a problem of mystery
shows). Revealing enough to expand the world and let Julie see it all and form
some really good connections. The plot had enough twists to keep me guessing –
but I think it was definitely a character driven show full of lots of minor
conflicts and revelations and complexities around the side (like the young
werewolves) that all nicely integrated to the greater whole
My main feel leaving this book is how refreshing it is -
and how I hope it goes on from here, The Urban Fantasy genre, for all that it
has infinite potential with infinite imagination, there are so often tropes
that have become so ingrained as to be almost laws. The maleness of werewolves,
their physicality, the aggression all feel almost enforced. This book is
absolutely a breath of fresh air to subvert so much of that and in so many
often subtle ways while telling a good investigation and laying out an
interesting world that I really want to see developed.
