Wolf's Bane by Kelley Armstrong

SYNOPSIS

Summer camp is a traditional teenage rite of passage, but when you add supernatural powers to the typically high dosage of adolescent hormones – you get an even more combustible mix. Sixteen-year-old werewolf twins Kate and Logan Danvers are none too thrilled at being shipped off to a supernatural youth leadership conference in West Virginia.

From the moment they arrive at the camp, the twins sense something is off and they react in their usual manner – Logan reserving judgement and surveying the setup, while Kate charges forward determined to get answers.

Kate and Logan quickly ascertain that most of the conference attendees have already formed hostile factions, leaving the twins and a few other misfits to band together.

What seems like teen hormones in overdrive becomes something much more dangerous, even deadly. Add in a strange magic-warded cabin in the woods and a local history rife with curses and macabre legends, and it becomes clear this was a really, really bad place to build a camp for teenage supernaturals.

Synopsis from Goodreads

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PERSONAL REVIEW

I was rereading the Women of the Otherworld series over the holiday season and happened to visit Kelley Armstrong's website to see what upcoming books she had. Imagine my joy when I found out that she had written a book about the grown-up children of Elena and Clay! Of course I needed to find and read this book asap, and it was definitely different than what I was expecting. 

Danvers Twins Are Teenagers! 
Firstly, I love that we're getting to see Kate and Logan as teens. It's such an emotional time in people's lives, which is probably only made harder with all the werewolf hormones running through their bodies. It's also our first time really getting to spend an entire novel with teenagers in the Otherworld series, which was a really interesting perspective. The world is a different place since Bitten and Kate and Logan have grown up surrounded by fantastic and magical beings, so they have such a different outlook on life than Elena would have had. Also, they were brilliant as kids, so of course I wanted to see them as teens.

Missing the Classic Characters 
I was fairly disappointed that we really don't get to see any of the main characters from the Otherworld series, other than Elena, Clay and Jeremy. While it can be argued that the Pack doesn't spend a lot of time with outsiders, where is Jamie, Vanessa or Hope (who are all mates of Pack members)? Heck, we don't even get to see the Sorrentino's and find out what Reese and Noah are up to (am I the only one that wants to know if Reese and Maddie ended up together?!!), which feels like such a missed opportunity if this truly is one of the last books Armstrong gives us from this world. 

Interesting Plot but Moves Too Quickly
There's a lot of cool things that happen in this book, but it seems like there's more potential than anything else. The plot moves so quickly (maybe there was a word limit?) that it's hard to feel connected to what Kate and Logan are going through. They each have personal concerns they are trying to deal with, but those are rushed along so that the "mystery" of the camp takes priority. But this just means that there's less time to learn about the new characters and we are rushed along to get to the action of the story. 

While I'm happy that we get to see the Danvers twins as teenagers, we don't get enough of the classic Otherworld Armstrong storytelling that we've seen from her older protagonists. Maybe the twins needed to be closer to their 20s? Or maybe we just needed a longer book. Either way, I'd recommend this book to people who've enjoyed other books from the Otherworld series because it is lovely to see the Danvers again, but I don't think this is the ideal choice for someone just starting in the series (if you're just starting, start at the beginning with Bitten!)

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FINAL RATING: 3.5/5