Life, Interrupted

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A bit like BVC, but for backlist only, looks like -- here's the beta site.

On the Prowl by Patricia Briggs

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Overall I enjoyed this anthology of four novellas. I bought it to get the prequel to Patricia Brigg's CRY WOLF (which did not disappoint -- who knew a woman wielding a rolling pin could be sexy? Charles asks himself) but enjoyed the Wilks and Chance stories enough that I will look for books by them. The Eileen Wilks story especially was quite interesting -- Kai made an intelligent, ordinary person swept up in an extraordinary life change, and Nathan, as the Stranger in a Strange Land, made a believable and sympathetic character. I understand Wilks has dragons in her Lupi books -- which excites me as a reader, but since I'm starting something of my own with dragons in them, I will have to put her books on hold for now!

Chance's story contained humor and the strong emotion of a wronged heroine -- I had to work to like the hero, since I was primed to dislike him by profession and/or race. Once he ended up looking like a drowned rat, I decided to give him a second chance!

The Briggs story is the beginning of a character tale, and really finishes in CRY WOLF. Charles Cornick finally gets to be front and center, and he meets his match in a frail young werewolf named Anna who discovers that a horrible wrong was done to a young man, and finds the courage to call the Marrok to report it. This story is moving very slowly (the second novel, HUNTING GROUND, takes place a month after CRY WOLF) and is a sweet paranormal romance. But watching two werewolves build a relationship is interesting and touching. There is nothing easy about being a Briggs' werewolf!

This made three enjoyable stories out of four, a good record. I did not care at all for the fourth story. Its style, its subject, its characters were simply nothing that I wanted to read. I would have stopped reading this as a novel early on, but wanted to give the writer a chance. I won't automatically avoid anything of hers, but I won't count her being in an anthology as an added reason to pick up another collection.

So -- three enjoyable ones out of four, this is a solid 3.5 stars collection, worth picking up if you enjoy any of these authors.



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