Author: Emily Jane

Publisher: Hyperion Avenue

ISBN: 9781368116039

A young woman looking for revenge runs into a man with a dark secret: he’s a werewolf. Although terrified at first, the woman realizes he may be the key to getting justice for the countless who have died horrible, mysterious deaths—or suffered worse. 

Author Emily Jane is back with a novel that sparkles with her trademark wit, astute observations, and her stellar writing of children characters in American Werewolves.

In San Francisco, Natasha Porter is facing unexpected homelessness. Her roommate, Marie Babineux, a young woman from France, was brutally murdered recently. 

Natasha is heartsick about losing one of her only friends in the city and can’t afford the rent on their home anymore. She’s angry that someone could cut Marie’s life so short without thought or hesitation. She’s also terrified that Marie’s murder didn’t happen by normal means.

Desperate for answers and a hot shower, Natasha turns to her only other friend. In college Natasha and Lee were a thing, but they’ve moved comfortably into an easy friend zone that leads Natasha to believe Lee will welcome her and he does. 

As a stay-at-home dad, having Natasha around means a break in the monotony of caring for little ones. In a decision that only makes sense within the context of grief, 

Natasha takes the job that used to be Marie’s: being a hostess at the swanky Olympic Country Club. She needs the cash, yes, but maybe she’ll also be able to figure out what happened to Marie.

The country club caters to the richie-rich of the city, including the partners of Barrington Equity. The venture capital firm is known for taking on smaller companies and turning them inside out for insane profits. 

That lure of money is exactly what keeps Shane LaSalle, associate, on the hook. He wants to be a partner at Barrington and fly around on private jets and swagger into a room and have everyone kowtow to him. Now all that feels just within reach.

When the partners at Barrington invite Shane to an exclusive retreat in Pennsylvania, it seems like the stars are finally aligning in his favor. He doesn’t realize that it isn’t the stars he should worry about; it’s the moon. 

Strange whispers of werewolves follow Barrington Equity wherever they go. The trip to Pennsylvania is meant to be a new beginning, and for Shane it is; just not the beginning he wanted. Now he wants nothing more than for everything to end.

Eventually, Natasha and Shane meet and form a friendship. Both of them are itching to make things right, even if Shane’s itchiness follows a more lunar cycle. 

They’ll have to figure out how to work with celebrities, unlikely friends, and even a precocious child who is convinced Natasha is a ghost if they ever want life to get back mostly to normal.

Author Emily Jane settles squarely into the groove of the genre of speculative fiction with this, her third book, that is just as self-assured as her debut, the wonderfully wacky On Earth As It Is on Television. 

Here, as in that book, Jane’s youngest character shines. Her knack for balancing the innocence of children with their ability to be sassy, speak plain truths, and not incur society’s side-eyeing is spot on. 

Despite the fact that Lee’s daughter is only in a handful of scenes, she’ll have readers chuckling every time.

The other characters also shine, a hallmark of Jane’s writing strengths. From her book’s opening pages, she writes with depth and an interiority that will make readers believe these people live next door or around the block. 

With such a solid foundation in characters, Jane makes it easy to suspend disbelief in whatever out-of-this-world concept she might present to readers.

In American Werewolves, the titular creatures are at the heart of the plot. In the hands of any lesser-skilled author, the idea of werewolves would have come across as grossly exaggerated. 

At the very least, it would be hard to take them seriously. Emily Jane has crafted a thoughtful tale that doesn’t tread new ground when it comes to the issues it covers but does present them in a way that deserves another thought.

If the book can be faulted anywhere, it’s that some of the story real estate that went to Shane could have been given over to the side plot of Natasha’s career implosion or even the “historical” passages about Bit in the 19th century.

 Bit’s part of the story feels so lived in that readers may end up wishing they could have lingered with him a little longer and not with Shane quite so much.

Nevertheless, readers who love books that surprise them and fans of any sort of speculative fiction will absolutely want to check this out. I recommend readers Bookmark American Werewolves by Emily Jane.