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Dec242011
Christmas Week 2011 – BOOK REVIEW: ‘Wolfsbane & Mistletoe’ ed. by Charlaine Harris
by Carolyn • Posted in 4 Star Reviews, Anthology, Book Reviews, Charlaine Harris, Christmas Week 2011, Gollancz, Reviews by Carolyn, Urban Fantasy
TITLE: Wolfsbane & Mistletoe (Anthology)
CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS: Charlaine Harris, Toni L.P. Kelner, Donna Andrews, Simon R. Green, Dana Cameron, Kat Richardon, Alan Gordon, Carrie Vaughn, Dana Stabenow, Keri Arthur, Patricia Briggs, J.A. Konrath, Nancy Pickard, Karen Chance, Rob Thurman
PUBLISHER: Gollancz (UK) | Ace (US)
PUBLICATION DATE: Nov 2011 (UK) | Nov 2010 (US)
FORMAT: Paperback, 405 pages
GENRE: Urban Fantasy
SOURCE: Review copy from publisher
Reviewed by Carolyn
Buy Your Copy
The holidays can bring out the beast in anyone – particularly lycanthropes. Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner have harvested the scariest, funniest, saddest werewolf tales by an outstanding pack of authors, best read by the light of a full moon with a silver bullet close at hand.
Whether wolfing down a holiday feast (use your imagination) or craving some hair of the dog on New Year’s morning, the werewolves in these frighteningly original stories will surprise, delight, amuse, and scare the pants off readers who love a little wolfsbane with their mistletoe.
REVIEW:
As with all anthologies I have reviewed I wanted to review a large selection of the short stories to give you a good indication if this book is worth reading/buying, unfortunately with the lead up to Christmas I just haven’t had the time to read much at all. So I only have two mini reviews for you. Hopefully I will review a few more from this anthology in due course.
GIFT WRAP ~ Charlaine Harris
How does Ms Harris do it? In just twenty odd pages she pulled me into the story and I didn’t want to leave. This is a lovely self-contained little story with a beginning, middle and end and written with Harris’s usual easy southern style.
Being without family and friends over the Christmas holiday, Sookie is feeling a little lonely. While out the day before she’d heard a strange noise in the words and so decides to investigate. Well, what else has she to do?
She happens upon an injured, naked man who, in Sookie style, she takes back to her place to clean him up and take care of his wounds. She knows he’s a were from his psychic waves and also finds she can’t quite keep her eyes off his naked body!
But things are not as they seem. Sookie feels something’s off about him but still lusts after him. And after a while a howl from outside alerts the man, who calls himself Preston, that the creatures that hurt him have found him and he’s in danger. Sookie hides him and manages to see off the bad guys with her shotgun in hand.
Things take a surprising turn for Sookie as she finds herself in bed with Preston. Let’s just say she wakes up Christmas morning with a smile on her face. The ending I didn’t see coming which was great, especially for such a short story and there’s also a little twist. When I finished I desperately wanted to go and read the next book in the Sookie series that’s sitting on my shelf. (8/10)
LUCY, AT CHRISTMASTIME ~ Simon R. Green
Although I’ve heard of this author and even have one of his books on my shelf, I’ve never read anything by him before. His writing style is great with a dryness that I liked a lot.
We meet a guy in a bar who’s remembering a lost love on Christmas Eve. His thoughts are with Lucy from years ago, when they first met, how their love grew. This is a bittersweet story with a sting in its tale. I enjoyed this story even though it was very short story (seven pages), but it was enough of a taster to want to read more by this author. (7/10)
VERDICT:
The two stories I read were great and I am looking forward to reading more from this anthology, I’m just sorry I didn’t have time to read and review more for you.
The Authors Online
