Author: Angela Quinton

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”.