Category: You Might Like…

Add Beth W. Patterson‘s debut novel The Wild Harmonic to the ever-growing list of werewolf books I’ll finally have time to read after the upcoming nuclear apocalypse.

New Orleans musician Birch “Buzz” MacKinlay used to think she was the only werewolf in the world. But that was before the mysterious and captivating Rowan welcomed her into his pack, and showed her that shapeshifters – all kinds of shapeshifters – were hiding in plain sight everywhere. Now Birch is on a crash course by day to learn everything she can about the secret “shifter” world, while gigging as a bass player at night. But there’s a problem with this dream come true: a dark and growing danger threatens the shifters, who are beginning to mysteriously disappear or die. Faced with hecklers, drunks, stalkers, and incompetent bandmates in one life and fang-toothed double agents in the other, Birch doesn’t know who to trust – especially now that she’s the target of a powerful enemy. With menace closing in fast, Birch must find a way to save her new pack… or lose everything that matters, including her own life.

The excerpt on Patterson’s web site piqued my interest. I kept wanting to think “this isn’t my thing” as I read – the rhythm of the prose is a little strange in places, and Birch’s werewolf form is literally “a large wolf”, which you all know isn’t really my thing. What hooked me, though, and kept me thinking about this book for the past few weeks, is how Patterson writes about music.

She’s an accomplished musician, and from the first paragraph of The Wild Harmonic it’s clear that her experiences performing (and being moved by) music form an integral and exuberant part of the narrative. I’m not crazy about urban fantasy or quadrupedal werewolves, but give me a story in which the author writes with enthusiasm about something she loves and does well, and you’ve got me on board.

You can buy The Wild Harmonic in paperback and digital formats from Amazon and direct from the publisher.

Here’s some holiday reading direct from the “You Might Like…” category of things I haven’t checked yet but want to: horror author S.M. Douglas‘s new werewolf novel Apex Predator.

It combines classic occult story assets like “secrets from WWII-era Europe” and “mythical evil on the verge of remaking the world” with a fictional dystopian present day that seems increasingly non-fictional as 2016 staggers to its miserable conclusion. But I digress! A summary from Douglas herself:

In a world destabilized by soaring inequality, climate change, and war the deaths of several high profile bankers leave national security experts scrambling for answers. A disgruntled and discredited FBI Agent striving to bring to justice the corrupt individuals responsible for wrecking his community is instead ordered to protect these same Wall Street power brokers. In the postindustrial wasteland of a bankrupt Detroit he stumbles onto a lead capable of not just cracking the case, but with potentially explosive ramifications for the future of mankind. Meanwhile, a team of historians investigating a mysterious Second World War era mass grave make a startling discovery in a medieval village located deep within a foreboding Ukrainian valley. Brought together, they face an ancient terror in a global adventure that forces them to confront the tragic history of Eastern Europe’s blood lands. There they struggle to reconcile their findings with the evidence that a mythic evil is possibly real, and murderously intent on keeping its existence a secret until able to set in motion events that could change human history.

To be frank, this sounds like exactly the kind of thing I want to read right now, so I’m going to order a paperback copy from Amazon as soon as I’m done writing this post. Aspiring metal bands, please contact Douglas directly to negotiate the rights to name your group “Eastern Europe’s Blood Lands”.

David L. Robbins has published hundreds of books under his own name and half a dozen pen names. Among them is his 1983 novel The Wereling, which has just been re-published in an expanded form. You can get a paperback copy for $11 or on your Kindle for less than a buck on Amazon. (more…)

It’s not every day I get asked to share a book with a forward that warns squeamish people not to buy it. “Breeds” by Canadian horror & fantasy author Keith C Blackmore is a “werewolf book. Not a romance. Not at all.” It’s $4.99 on Amazon, and it gets an automatic thumbs-up from me before reading more than the first two pages because Blackmore knows how to write a convincing Newfoundland accent. (more…)

“Five innocent people have vanished, leaving investigators without a clue and families in turmoil. A brutal attack leaves one brother dead and his twin in a coma. The horror has only begun for Alec Rune as he learns that werewolves have a much darker plan for him.” The first book in a trilogy by Adrian Lilly, available on Amazon. Book two arrives next month.

This book of cartoons by Doug Smith features “insight to some known and little-known facts about Lycanthropes”, and a drawing of a werewolf punching a man’s head CLEAN OFF. It costs less than three bucks, and if I had a Kindle, I’d be reading it right now.

These are the WSFA Press hardcover limited edition copies of George R.R. Martin’s werewolf novella I told you about last month, but they’re not pre-orders anymore. They’re signed by Martin and the artist Rick Berry, who did 10 original illustrations + the cover, and at only $35 each, if you want a copy you better hustle – there are only 500 in total!

From Grand Mal Press, “a small press publisher of genre fiction”: Three of Eric S. Brown‘s A Pack Of Wolves novellas collected in a signed hardcover. $49.99, limited to 100 copies.

For the first and only time, all the Pack of Wolves novellas, including the previously unpublished 3rd book, are collected into one hardcase edition signed by Eric S. Brown.