The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice

2 STARS

The Wolf Gift Chronicles - Book 1

I'd stopped reading Anne Rice a while ago and I'll be honest, the only reason I bought this was because she announced that her MC was inspired by Matt Bomer, the star of White Collar of whom she is greatly enamored. Turns out that he's one of my favorites too, so how could I not read this? :) 

Anyway, that's why I went back to Rice. *sigh* 

I don't know if she's still thinking that she's too good for an editor, but BOY, this book could have used some help. I found little of the storytelling and action that drew me to Interview With a Vampire and many of it's successors. And it could have been SO interesting! 

I liked her werewolf premise, I liked her characters - what we saw of them. She built a wonderful cast and then under-utilised the vast majority of them. Yes, we need to delve into the motivations and thoughts of Reuben, the MC, but I really wanted to see more of the Pack (for want of a better word) which really only gets established in the last 4 (of 40) chapters. Maybe she's hedging for a sequel? 

All in all, I was looking for more of a story than a character study and sadly, I feel like I got the latter.