“A person is there, one day, and the next he doesn’t exist. Even if he’s your dad. Because nobody is safe. Ever.”
Cheyenne Clark is the front woman in a hunt for the werewolf who killed her father when she was a child. Unfortunately, her wish to come face to face with Monty Powell comes at a severe price . . . her humanity.
TITLE:
FROSTBITE: A WEREWOLF TALE
WRITER:
by David Wellington
SERIES:
The Frostbite Series #1
PUBLISHER:
Book: Three Rivers Press (October 6, 2009)
MP3/Audiobook: Penguin Audio (October 6, 2009)
LEGNTH:
Book: 288pp.
MP3/Audiobook: 8 hrs. 40 min. (Unabridged)
GENRE:
Horror, Suspense,
DESCRIPTORS:
Murder, Good vs. Evil, Werewolves, Victims, Survivor’s Guilt, Hunting, Curse, Transformation, Magic, Silver, Traps, Hunters,
CHARACTERS:
Cheyenne “Chey” Clark, A werewolf attack survivor who lost her father to it and then lost her way.
Montgomery “Monty” Powell, A human who harbors the curse of the werewolf and lives far North of civilization in Canada to protect humans.
Chey’s father, His surprising death at the paws of a werewolf has left a undeniable mark on Chey.
Dzo, A mysterious man who seems to be a friend to Monty, and has no fear of the werewolves.
Uncle Bannerman, Chey’s American uncle, a U.S. military officer.
Lucie, The first werewolf who made Monty one of her kind.
Baroness de Clichy-sous-Vallee, Lucie’s descendant and keeper.
Bobby Fenech, The man who organizes the party to take Powell’s werewolf out.
Lester, A helicopter pilot.
Frank Pickersgill, Brother to Bruce and part of the Western Prairie Canid Management.
Bruce Pickersgill, Brother to Frank and part of the Western Prairie Canid Management.
Tony Balfour, Frank and Bruce’s half brother, he is a sharp shooter.
SUMMARY:
When Chey was a child, her father accidentally hit a wolf on the road as they were returning from a camping trip. The wolf, however, turned out to be a not-so-easily killed werewolf. It attacked and ate her father in front of her eyes. She barely escaped alive.
Years later, Chey is hunting the werewolf in the wilds of Northern Canada when it finds her.
She manages to avoid becoming the huge wolf’s lunch but not before it bites her leg.
The next morning, Chey staggers into a clearing and encounters a strange man called Dzo. When he eventually notices her, he takes her to the only person who could help — Monty Powell.
Monty barely meets Chey before she suspects he’s the werewolf she and Bobby have been hunting. And, she is certain, he is the werewolf who killed her father years before.
Unfortunately, when Monty realizes she was bitten by a werewolf — him — he knows she’ll turn into a wolf as soon as the sun goes down unless he kills her first. The idea of someone to share his exile with may be tempting but the chance that another monster may savage the human population because of him is the stuff of nightmares.
However, unknown to Monty, Bobby is flying in by helicopter. Unknown to Chey, he’s bringing in armed help — expert wolf killers — because the hunt was never just Chey’s . . . she was just the bait.
And if she survives past the first evening and becomes a werewolf, how will Bobby — her lover, her boss and her companion in werewolf-hating — take that?
Come to think of it . . . how will she?
APPEAL:
This story starts up with Chey in the middle of tracking down a werewolf and it continues straight through, pausing only for a couple of flashbacks to tell the story of Monty’s life and later to tell Chey’s.
The pacing alternates between breakneck speed and a catch-your-breath slower speed. Wellington does an excellent job of heightening the suspense even in the slower moments — such as when Chey quietly goes through Monty’s cabin noticing first one thing then another and finally seeing the large clues in the kitchen that point to Monty being a werewolf.
Oddly enough (because I usually love strong female characters) Chey’s character was slow to grow on me. Dzo and Monty caught me immediately but Chey took time. She came alive when we got her back story — the trip home where she lost her father and her life derailed.
From that point on, Chey had me hooked. Her character took on more layers when this careful, almost solitary seeming woman realizes she needs some sort of human company. When she was trapped in the cabin, you could feel her imprisonment becoming claustrophobic.
Northern Canada serves as the setting for most of the story. I was particularly interested in the trees that grow in different directions, giving it the name of the Drunken Forest. Then the action moves to the abandoned town called Port Radium.
The nights are growing longer, the days much shorter and soon a night lasting four days will fall over the Drunken Forest. Since the werewolf comes out anytime there is a moon — whether they can see it or not — they change every night. When the night lasting four days hits, Chey will be a wolf the entire time.
When Chey is a wolf, the narrator slips into her wolf mind and uses a lot a repetitive words. Words like cursed, man and silver, are very meaningful to the wolf. And Wellington folds the repetition echoing in the wolf’s head into a very short sentence explaining why the word is so important to the reader. These are very short terse passages because the wolves do not think great thoughts.
NOTES:
In the story Frostbite, there are a couple of coincidences which other reviewers have held up at flaws. I know that Frostbite, is part of a series and I suspect that what seems like coincidences now may prove to be far different when the full story is revealed. Since the story is told from Chey’s point of view, what she doesn’t find out until later, we can’t find out until later.
AUDIOBOOK:
I listened to Frostbite and found it difficult to put down. I liked the reader, her voice was perfect for Chey. I found myself held in suspense as the novel started out with a bang and steam rolled to the final confrontation in Port Radium.
Tai Sammons read the book and did a great job with story. Her voice became Chey for me. She handled the word repetition very well, making it sound more like poetry through changes in pitch and tone. These particular passages, especially the ones about silver, could be deadly dull but Tai punched them up with her voice, until they were like heartbeats.
Not surprisingly the male voices weren’t her best but I tend to cut a lot of slack when a reader makes a serious attempt to differentiate opposite-sex voices. Monty and Dzo’s were the best male voices. Dzo’s had the sense of alieness appropriate to the character.
READALIKES:
If you like David Wellington’s Frostbite: A Werewolf Tale, you might want to pick up the next book in the series: Overwinter: A Werewolf Tale
David Wellington has also written a couple of other horror series. His first publisher series was about zombies: Monster Island: A Zombie Novel
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