WOLF AT THE DOOR

Author: MaryJane Davidson ISBN: 9780425243114 10/2011 PARANORMAL Publisher: BERKLEY TRADE

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Full disclosure: I swore off of MaryJanice Davidson a couple of years ago, around the introduction of the Fred the Mermaid series. While MJD was known for her snappy dialogue, I found that all of her heroines sounded alike and that there was no difference between Betsy from the Undead books, Sara of Derik’s Bane or Fred, the aforementioned mermaid. Six years later, I decided to try MJD again to see if anything’s changed. Unfortunately, the answer is not really.

WOLF AT THE DOOR brings the Wyndham Werewolf clan to the Vampire Queen’s doorstep when Rachel, cousin to Michael Wyndham, gets sent to Ohio to keep an eye on Betsy. Edward Bately, friend to Boo the vampire hunter, also goes to Ohio to scout out whether Boo’s services are needed there. That’s about as much as I can tell you about the plot without recapping to the last page, because nothing really happens for more than half of the book. Dialogue is what Davidson does best, and fans of her work will likely enjoy this new meshing of the Wyndham and Undead worlds; but make no mistake, this is a dialogue-heavy, plot-light book. People talk for pages at a time with very little narrative to even set up the scene. Several times I found myself flipping back pages to try and figure out where the characters were while they were tossing these witty barbs back and forth, only to resign myself to being confused.

All in all, WOLF AT THE DOOR embodies everything MJD is known for as an author. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, though, depends entirely on the reader.

Melissa Stratford