Introduction
After the success of her first urban fantasy novel Nightshade, a sequel was sure to be much anticipated by fans of young adult author Andrea Cremer. Set in the town of Vail, Cremer’s series tells the story of Guardian Calla Tor, a girl born with the innate ability to turn into a wolf. Calla is an alpha wolf and comes from a community of Guardians where she is set to become head of a new pack.
At the end of Nightshade we saw Calla fight against the Keepers, a magical race who had for a long time used her kind to protect them from the Searchers. Calla and Shay soon discovered that the Keepers had been lying to the Guardians and that they were in fact the villains while the Searchers were the good guys. Upon finding out that everything she had been taught to believe in was an elaborate lie constructed by the Keepers so that they could use the wolves to protect them, Calla fled Vail with Shay seeking refuge with the Searchers.
Wolfsbane in Summary
Wolfsbane begins with Calla waking up to find herself in the Academy of the Searchers, where she is kept locked up until it is decided she can be trusted. Once released the Searchers she encounters explain to her the real history of her people as opposed to the false one made up by the Keepers.
Calla is astounded by what she is told and soon teams up with the Searchers so that they can return to Vail and rescue her wolf pack she left behind. The first mission doesn’t fully go to plan and there is a heart-breaking fatality. It isn’t until the second rescue mission that Calla finds her pack members imprisoned in the night club of Efron Bane.
But all is not as it seems, and during this mission Calla will see that not all of her pack mates stayed loyal to their alpha. Calla also finds her ex-betrothed Ren in the night club, however he is clearly struggling whether to side with the girl he loves or his father Emile Laroche, and Calla is shocked to discover she has been ambushed.
Wolfsbane in Review
As the sequel to the highly entertaining and addictive read that was Nightshade, Wolfsbane had a lot to live up to. This book was just as fast paced as its predecessor, if not more so, with action and revelations around every corner. The structure and time span of the novel as a whole was slightly altered from the first book as it was spread out over only two days rather than many weeks. This factor added to the speed at which I read the book, as I could not put it down and was tempted to read it entirely in one sitting.
Again in this book we see the romance blossom between Calla and Shay, and there are many heated moments between the two. But Calla finds herself thinking again and again of Ren and how he lied to help her escape, she struggles over her feelings for the pack alpha and what they might mean.
Cremer’s writing was as engaging as ever and you really fall into the page when reading this book, however there were one or two threads to the story that could have been rendered better. The first was when Calla hears of the fact that her mother was killed because of her betrayal, but she doesn’t seem overly upset about this, she is more concerned about Ren and her pack mates. Also, the story ends on a cliff hanger which is a good mechanism to encourage readers to anticipate the next book, but the ending seemed far too abrupt, and the book could have benefitted from an extra 50 pages or so to better tie up the story.
In all, despite the abrupt ending, this book is highly recommended to anyone who enjoyed Nightshade and for fans of young adult fantasy in general.
Cremer, Andrea. Wolfsbane. Philomel, 2011.
Lorraine McInerney - Lorraine McInerney is currently working as a freelance writer and editor. She studied Arts for four years and has a BA in English and ...
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