Taken by Storm, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

A vivid, wrenching, entirely worthy conclusion to an excellent trilogy.

Take everything we've seen from Ms. Barnes before in this series and mark it up by fifty percent - the violence, the emotional impact, the shocking plot twists - then reduce the size of the book by a fourth, and you'll have this speed-reading terror of a foil-bound trilogy-closer. (I'm going to be speaking about it as though it's the end of the the series; it has a definite ring of finality to it that I hope goes undisturbed, and from what I've heard on the author's site, it will.)



If anyone's reading this and doesn't know the first two books... click on the "shapeshifters" tag and find my reviews of them. Here we have Bryn, the human girl raised by a werewolf pack after the murder of her parents... Bryn, who has by this book grown up a good deal and taken her own very unique place in her raw, wild, and dangerous world.

I'm saying very little here, to avoid spoilers. Because trust me, for this book, you don't want'm. I was on the metaphorical edge of my seat the whole time. Suffice to say that a long-held question of mine was answered, one of Evan's predictions came true that I didn't believe would, and one of my predictions did as well. Two plot points that we both expected also occurred. Not that I'm saying this book is predictable - I was eeping the whole while.

There will almost certainly be a few points at which you will beg, "Don't let it end like this!"
Almost certainly a few to the tune of, "Is there honestly a way out of this?"
Wordless exclamations are also not inappropriate at many spots.

I'm not entirely positive what I think of Callum's prescience as a plot device. It may have annoyed me... I'm honestly not sure whether it did or not. On the other hand, it annoys other characters, too.

For those of you who read Hunger Games, you'll probably come to notice that Ms. Barnes has jumped on the "surprise chapter endings" bandwagon. I'm not un-sorry. But I did have to cover a few endings with my hand because my nervous eye has a tendency to jump ahead of my reading.

(I just turned on Handel's "Messiah" again. I think I did this writing the review of the first book, too. I detect a trend here?)

Age rec: This is going to stop all of nobody, but probably fifteen and up? And up? (chuckles nervously) Just for violence and some slightly disturbing scenes related to same. Unlike the previous two books, I found some parts of this one uncomfortable. Trust me - not because of the romance, so for any of you who worried that the third book would involve flagrant indecency, lay your minds at rest. [I am about to slightly qualify that last statement with a very indefinite and small spoiler that avoids naming names: One of the characters becomes pregnant while unmarried, but the fact alone is established onstage, without any indecent content in sight.]

Bottom line: The promise held out in the first two books is amply fulfilled and then some.

Trial by Fire, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

How did I get this book? Well, there's a bit of a story, actually. You who read the blog know how much I love Raised By Wolves. So I was going nuts over trying to get this one when it came out. I mean, more Bryn & Company? I'm definitely interested.
The library I normally use hadn't ordered it. The library I also have access to was ordering a copy and taking forever to get it. Then my friend (this one we'll call Dragonrider) came to my birthday get-together, bearing gifts...
... including Raised By Wolves and this book. Yay Dragonrider!
I stayed up way too late last night reading it.

Those who haven't read the first book, read my review of that. Then go read the book.

For those who have...

First round in "Bryn vs the werewolf Senate and tradition" is finished. The score: Bryn 1, Tradition 0.
Now she's the young, female, and human alpha of a very unlikely collection of werewolves. But they're Pack, and they matter to each other, and they don't mind being unusual. But now, scant months since the Cedar Ridge pack's formation, trouble appears... or rather, trouble collapses on the front porch on Thanksgiving night, and of course Bryn's not going to leave well enough alone.
Shay, the leader of the Snake Bend pack (and Devon's older brother) has gone too far with one of his pack. Now Lucas, injured and desperate, demands the protection of Cedar Ridge. At first it seems just an issue of a runaway Were, but when Bryn's nightmares worsen and the enemies begin to show up, it's clear that something more is going on. Something bigger. Something that's been brewing for a long while.
And the Cedar Ridge pack is right in the middle, headed towards battle and potential destruction.

If anything, I'm going to say, this is better than the first book. Jennifer Lynn Barnes is packing on the emotional impact, upping the stakes, introducing new threats. This book is about werewolves, yes, but it's also about responsibility, compassion... all the costs and benefits of being selfless, both to one's-self and to others around.
Bryn's done a lot of growing, and she's had to. She's still got her sense of humor, her friendly teasing, but she's an Alpha now, a leader. She's making decisions - decisions on how much to follow in Callum's footsteps, decisions at each moment about how much to enforce her authority on the Weres in her pack. At the beginning of the book she's been choosing leniency most of all, but as things heat up, her policies begin to shift around.

It's come to me that there's a huge theme-thread about authority in this book: how much does a leader have the right to control their people? Granted, in the real world we don't have psychic powers or pack-bonds to enact our will on others, but the question is the same. Where is the fine line, Ms. Barnes seems to ask, between suggestion and coercion, between influence and absolute control?
Even Bryn's attempts to use her Alpha authority can't stop some of the things that happen by the end of this book.

Every time I thought the plot was resting at last, something else happened, and I was on the metaphorical edge of my seat for most of it. Some of the scenes near the end are nearing literary greatness. The final one is simply, beautifully chilling. And I am heartened by the fact that there's already a rough draft of book 3 in the works!
Though those of you who reach the end of Trial by Fire will see a particularly hard scene coming up in that selfsame book 3. I know it will have to happen sometime, but that won't make it easy, for me or for Bryn or for a lot of others.

As for the romance... frankly, it's a little overshadowed by the fact that Bryn just has friends. Chase is simply another of them - another who perhaps views her slightly differently - and there's a bit of kissing but not much more.
(There is a point where I got nervous that they would go further, but though the book's vague about it, I'm positive they didn't. I wouldn't recommend some of Bryn's practices with Chase [technically I suppose he could pass it off as guard duty?]; however, nothing indecent actually occurs.)
In addition to that, there's another small romance that develops. Suffice to say that it doesn't lead to anything objectionable either.

This one has more of a bittersweet ending than the previous book. I hope this trend won't continue.... I love my Cedar Ridge people!

Age rec: Anyone who's read Raised by Wolves can read this with no problems. Though, as I said, Bryn does some things with Chase that I wouldn't recommend or practice, nothing objectionable happens. The violence is probably a little less present, except as follows Lucas... okay, skip what I said about less violence. These books will be violent at times; that's just how they are. And I don't think any less of them for it.

Raised by Wolves, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

How I found this book: I heard good things about it from bloggers before it came into my library. When I saw it on the shelf, I thought, well, let's give it a try... I can send it back if I don't like it.
The first page had me hooked.

Book in a nutshell: Bryn (full name Bronwen Alessia St. Vincent Clare) has been adopted by the local werewolf pack after a loner werewolf killed her parents. She remains fully human and very independent, however. When she begins to have her priviledges curtailed and obscure warnings issued, she guesses that something is up.... something the werewolves don't want her to know about.
Discovery upon discovery will lead her through pain and trouble and rebellion, far into the wilderness, and finally to a final confrontation with the truly chilling villain who is responsible for her parents' deaths - and for much, much more.

This was a new sort of tale for me... I usually thought werewolves were the Antagonists, or at any rate that They Ought To Be Avoided... I think it was my violent mental allergy to most paranormal books that kept me in that mindset. My earliest book on the subject formed my opinions, and they stacked up to Keep A Long Way Away From The Werewolf. So when I found this book, I had to suspend my previous feelings. Fortunately it wasn't too hard, as even Bryn still finds her "packmates" scary.

Some traditions hold, as well as the "scary" part. As in, werewolves still have an allergy to silver. But Ms. Barnes manages to mix the elements quite nicely, and I think most readers will find her 'wolves a fair cross between the original legends and the um, new urban edition.

(Unrelated subject: Just turned on a CD of Handel's Messiah. Terrific music. The opening symphonia is pure heavenly sound... I adore violins!)

Raised by Wolves is not a paranormal romance - thank heavens. Sure, there is a romance going on. But it is not the focus of the plot. It's more of a thriller... that just happens to be about werewolves.... really.
And Bryn is such an extremely sensible person, she doesn't allow herself to dissolve over a guy. She questions their connection and defends it on other than romantic grounds. And I must say, the Signifigant Other is a strong and intelligent person on his own.

The antagonist of this book is about the scariest villain I have read about since the Nazgul. Just saying.

Some quotes:

"I really don't know why you're here," I told him, selecting my words carefully. Most Weres could smell a lie, and Callum, the alpha of alphas in our corner of the world, would have known immediately... Luckily for me, I didn't know precisely what it was that I'd done to merit a visit from our pack's leader. There were any number of possibilities, none of whcih I wanted to openly admit to on the off chance that there was something I'd done that he hadn't found out about yet.

-----------

There were several streams in the woods, as well as the disturbingly named Dead Man's Creek...

--------

...I knew I shouldn't respond, knew that anyone in Callum's basement was there for a reason... Whoever was down there sounded like I felt. It didn't matter who it was or what he'd done. I had to help him, because it wasn't like I could do a thing for myself...

--------

"You've never brought her back irreparably harmed," Ali admitted grudgingly. "This better not be a first."

-------


And by the way, I am quite delighted with the delicate power-balances of werewolf politics. This has got to be the only paranormal book where a character asks "Is this a democracy or isn't it?" and the answer actually matters. I can tell that Ms. Barnes put not only her heart into this writing, but also her mind.

As I told my brother not too long ago, "I could live in this book's world. I really could. And I can't say that for many books."
Though I did have to add, "Of course, I would probably have to break my habit of indiscriminate night wandering..."

Age rec: Thirteen the absolute rock-bottom limit. It's not for any indecency... the romance is, as I've said, not an overwhelming plot point... there were a few points I was worried at, but nothing happened... It's mostly the violence and the general nastiness of the villain that I balk at. I figure it would have thoroughly yikes-ed my twelve-year-old self. On the other hand, I wasn't the bravest.