Had it up to here with the endless stream of vampire novels desperately trying to catch some of the reflected glow of the TWILIGHT franchise’s popularity? Hang in there. The moon is on the rise and werewolves are on the prowl. And leading the pack is none other than good ol’ David Wellington, a favorite of these pages, with FROSTBITE.
This novel is terrific; a literate, smartly constructed page-turner that amply demonstrates Wellington’s skills at bringing traditional horror-fiction icons into a fully contemporary setting, all while maintaining the features that attracted us to them in the first place. But the really good news is it launches another series for this impressively talented author.
We first meet Cheyenne “Chey” Clark, the series’ protagonist, as she makes her way alone through the Canadian Arctic region and is nearly drowned by a flash flood. Before she can fully recover, she senses the presence of a wild animal and takes cover on the branch of a nearby tree.
The animal stalking her is a huge wolf. And there’s something frighteningly familiar about its glowing green eyes. It’s determined to attack Chey, but can only leap high enough to scratch her ankle before retreating into the woods.
Not long after that, Chey meets Monty Powell and his native Indian friend, Dzo, a couple of loners who seem content living cut off from humanity. When she tells them about her wolf injury, the two men declare her “cursed” and try to kill her. Turns out, they were right: The animal that attacked her is a werewolf, and the scratch has turned her into one as well. Now she must learn to live with this dual life and its threat to every human she approaches.
While acquainting us with Chey’s background and her involvement with werewolves — which, we learn, goes as far back as the grisly murder of her father when she was only 12 — Wellington revises our entire orientation of werewolves and their existence. There is no long, drawn-out transformation of the hair and body — just an eerie dissolving of the skeleton, followed by a quick, near-orgasmic change into the wolf. A full moon is not necessary; any amount of moonlight will trigger the reaction. But silver, in any form, is still deadly.
When Chey first changes, and during each successive transformation, Wellington immerses us into the dizzying world of smells, sounds and the other instincts and emotions that a werewolf experiences. Rarely has an author taken us so deeply and effectively into the life of lycanthropy survivors and how they battle the conflicting thoughts and urges of their two forms in the same body.
But FROSTBITE is no long-winded lesson. The heart of the novel is the story of the hunt and elimination of the werewolf that killed Chey’s father and still plagues the Canadian north. Of course, when Chey unwittingly becomes a werewolf herself, the tale becomes a compelling conflict of the hunter becoming the hunted. She struggles with the realization that she is now very much a part of the murderous problem.
FROSTBITE manages to be both a completely satisfying entity, while happily leaving us anticipating more stories about Chey and her life as a self-hating werewolf. And Wellington again proves himself as one of the very best authors of contemporary horror fiction. Fact is, he’s good enough to be enjoyed by damned near anybody who enjoys a good, gripping novel with lots of involving characters, interior motives and action to match.
His fans should take the effort to convince their non-horror-reading friends to experience his work. He is more than deserving of a much wider audience. In the meantime, let’s hope we don’t have to wait out too many cycles of the moon before we meet up again with Chey. —Alan Cranis
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• MONSTER ISLAND by David Wellington
• 23 HOURS by David Wellington
Related posts:
- NEWSGASM >> 8.2.06
- Q&A with VAMPIRE ZERO’s David Wellington
- Wolf’s Gambit
- Ravenous
- Kitty and the Midnight Hour
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
“grizzly murder” or “grisly murder?”
“the grizzly murder of her father”…was he killed by a bear?
I can vouch for this book. It is rugged, fast and fun. It’s sexy without being too much or too romanticized.
Awesome.
Ah, you sharp-eyed Bookgasm readers. Nothing gets past you. So thanks, Dean and Craig — I meant “grisly” as in gruesome. And no, it wasn’t a bear. Lesson learned!