Mini reviews

Lonely Werewolf Girl - Martin Millar

Teenage werewolf Kalix MacRinnalch is pursued through the streets of London by murderous hunters, while her sister, the Werewolf Enchantress, is busy designing clothes for the Fire Queen. In the Scottish Highlands there's trouble at Castle MacRinnalch as the Werewolf Clan prepares for war.

Lonely Werewolf Girl is an expansive tale of werewolves in the modern world. The MacRinnalch family contains elegant werewolves, troubled teenage werewolves, friendly werewolves, homicidal werewolves, fashion designers, warriors, punks, cross-dressers, musicians - an entire Clan of Werewolves, involved in conflict from the Scottish Highlands to London, and several dimensions beyond.

How anyone could not rush out and get this book after reading Chris' review is beyond me! I managed to get a copy through my library in perfect time for last year's RIP Challenge.

Lonely Werewolf Girl is a hoot! Flitting between modern day London and Edinburgh, the story moves from high drama to ridiculous comedy! Lonely Werewolf girl is both a dark fantasy, and a modern tale of students, music and pizza. Kalix is a troubled girl on the run from her family and living rough on the streets of London, when she is taken in by two naive but kind students.

With a bizarre series of events and plot twists, it is Millar's characters that steal the show. Perhaps best of all is Malveria, Queen of the Fire Elementals, who is more concerned with having the latest designer handbags and shoes than with ruling her kingdom. The hilarious things she occasionally comes out with left me roaring in laughter, especially her conversations with the haughty and misunderstood Werewolf Enchantress, Kalix's sister. Fantastic stuff!

Curse of the Wolf Girl - Martin Millar

Scottish teenage werewolf Kalix MacRinnalch is in London trying to settle down and live a normal life. Her new friends support her as she goes to college to learn to read and write, but her old enemies won't leave her alone. Many powerful werewolves want Kalix dead, and the Guild of Werewolf Hunters is still dedicated to wiping out the entire MacRinnalch werewolf clan. Life might be easier for Kalix if her werewolf family were able to help, but her sister the Enchantress needs all of her sorcerous powers to locate the perfect pair of high heels, her brother Markus is busy in Scotland organising an opera, and her cousin Dominil is engaged in her own merciless vendetta with her enemies. Kalix must carry on alone but she's finding it difficult enough to pay the rent and cope with her anxiety and depression, while struggling with werewolf hunters and exams at the same time...

With her life a little more stable, but her continuing problems with anxiety and depression, not to mention a laudanum addiction, Kalix attempts to get an education and even finds a romantic entanglement. However, life is never that easy when you are the daughter of the former werewolf chief and find a bunch of assassins on your tail, while befriended by the clumpsy adopted daughter of the Fire Queen. Needless to say, further chaos ensues.

While this was a thoroughly entertaining follow-up to Lonely Werewolf Girl, and I would highly recommend it, few of the characters were really developed much, and it did not feel quite as substantial as the first.

The City and the City - China Mieville

The body of a murdered woman is discovered in the remarkable, crumbling European city of Besźel. Such a crime is par for the course for Inspector Tyador Borlú, who is the premier talent of the Extreme Crime Squad – until his investigations uncover evidence that bizarre and terrifying forces are at work – and soon both he and those around him will be in considerable peril. He must undertake an odyssey, a journey across borders both physical and psychical, to the city which is both a complement and rival to his own, that of Ul Qoma.

China Mieville is a complicated writer, with a highly complex imagination. The City and the City begins as a crime novel, a whodunnit set in a fictional eastern European city, a culture in part Balkan and part Germanic. The victim is a young American woman who had been working in another city, "the" other city, situated in the same place - the two cities occupying the same place, sometimes merging, sometimes overlapping. Both the law and social acceptability require the citizens of these two cities to refrain from contact, to the point where people have learnt to "unsee" places and people in the other city. To see something from the other city would be considered breach, with harsh penalties. Strict border controls exist between the two, manned by law enforcement from both sides. However, there are some borders that cannot be completely maintained, which is where "Breach" - a mysterious force that deals out the most severe penalties - steps in.

The relationship between these two cities is the heart of this story, which rapidly delves into philisophical science fiction, while all the time focusing on two law enforcement officers and their search for the truth about the young woman's murder. Confusing yet gripping, the City and the City is a highly original and inventive novel, that occasionally falters, and while it may not have provided the most satisfying ending for this particular blogger, was a very enjoyable read.

Revolver - Marcus Sedgwick

After his father dies from the cold out on the ice-covered lake, fifteen year old Sig Andersson finds himself waiting alone with the body in the family cabin while his step-mother and sister go for help. Then a mysterious and sinister man bearing a revolver arrives claiming to have business with his father. Sig slowly learns the truth about the man's link to his family and when his sister's own life becomes threatened, he has to make a choice. Whether to use his father's own prized revolver.

Set in the Arctic Circle, cold penetrates every inch of this novel. With tension that you could cut with a knife, and a story of such intensity, this book lingered with me long after I finished it. Another atmospheric and gripping novel from my beloved Marcus Sedgwick. Go read it!