Book Review: Wild by Naomi Clark

Title: Wild (Vargulf #1)
Author: Naomi Clark










The premise of this book is rather unique. While I'm sure I'd find books about werewolves & drug addictions if I looked hard, this is new territory that makes a lot of sense when you think about it. How many times have various different authors described their hero(ine) reacting to their lupine urges in a way you'd expect a drug addict to react to their body clamoring for drugs? Mixing the two together makes a lot of sense, to be honest.

Lizzie Creighton ran away from her life a year ago, wanting to escape the pressures of university and just party. And that’s exactly what she did.

But now she's sick of the world she's fallen into – the drink, the drugs, the violence – and she's desperate to start again. The chance to do it comes from the last source she could ever imagine. After her deadbeat boyfriend steals her car and abandons her in the dead of night, Lizzie is bitten by a wolf. And suddenly her next fix is her last problem.

Now, caught between Nick Doyle, the outcast werewolf who claims he can save her, and Seth Weaver, the favourite son of the blue-blood werewolf royalty, Lizzie must decide what kind of werewolf she wants to be.

As shown above, I obviously loved the idea of a drug addict becoming a werewolf because of all the implications. If/when she went off the drugs, would the higher metabolism leave her without the urges or would they be that much stronger? Would it impact her wolfy behaviors? There's just so much possibility here that Clark could do just about anything she wanted & it works very well in this book. Lizzie is a very flawed character. She is selfish, but then that's to be expected from a drug addict & to be honest, I don't think that a selfless behavior would really be realistic here. I'm very glad that we didn't get a souped up Sue-ish character here- it made me that much joyous over Lizzie's triumphs & sad over her failures.

There's a lot that isn't said in this first book, which got to be a little frustrating at times. Without trying to spoil things, I doubt that anyone is what they really seem to be in this book & I can't wait for the next book to find out if my suspicions are a little correct. (After all, Nick's claims can't be entirely baseless, right?) I also want to see if Lizzie will have more after effects from the drugs as she's just starting off on a whole new path now.

This really was a joy to read & Clark has a very clever story brewing here. It's not quite perfect, but it's darn close & I can't help but think that this could be the start of a whole new trend of werewolf fiction. This isn't your normal werewolf story & that's what makes it so good.

4 out of 5 stars

(Reader copy provided by author)

Book Review: R.A.C.E. by Mobashar Qureshi

Title: R.A.C.E.
Author: Mobashar Qureshi
Publisher: CreateSpace
ASIN: B004HO5XL6
Release Date: 01/01/2011
















RACE (Radical Association of Criminal Ethnicities) is a dangerous and violent group on the verge of creating an illegal drug.


Parking Officer Jon Rupret wants desperately to move up from handing out parking tickets. An impulsive act from his past throws him into Operation Anti-RACE—a unit set up to stop RACE. He is partnered with veteran detective, Phillip Beadsworth, a mild mannered Brit who doesn't much like Rupret and knows more than he reveals.


Along the way Rupret encounters Mahmud Hanif, a qualified engineer, who drives a taxi to pay his bills; DJ Krash, the second best disc-jockey in the world; Cal Murray, the owner of the House of Jam, the hottest club in Toronto; and of course, his mother, a grade school teacher in Guelph, who thinks Rupret is a financial advisor working on Bay street.


RACE is a compelling mystery and a humorous look at Toronto through Jon Rupret’s eyes.


I had to kind of mull this book over in my mind for a while before writing this review because overall, this wasn't a bad book. It just wasn't a great one, a novel to end all novels.


The author has an easy style of writing to him that really suited Rupret's narrative. I found the main character to be a fairly easygoing person that I could connect with at the beginning. I saw him as a sort of bumbling Seth Rogen kind of character that was occasionally endearing. I have to admit, his initial antics at the beginning couldn't help but make me smile & draw me in.


Unfortunately that pace just wasn't ultimately kept up here. The general story idea is a good one & the author does his best to keep us interested, but I just felt like it took a while to get where it was trying to go. I really wish that certain things (such as details about the leader of the operation, Zee) were more spaced out in the book. I was a bit surprised about the twist at the ending, but I couldn't help but feel like it was just a teensy bit overly complicated. It came across as something that would work better if it was more spaced out or had a little more development earlier in the story.



I'm aware that this was the author's first novel & that comes through in this book, so I'm optimistic that further novels will be a little less green than this one was.

Final diagnosis: It's not a bad book but it just felt a little unfinished at times. Since it's only $2.99 on the kindle, I'd recommend it as a purchase for a breezy weekend or holiday/vacation read.



(Reader copy provided by author)