Twenty-four years old, no job, and kicked out by her parents, Randi Matheson is living at her aunt and uncle’s trying her hardest to complete a novel she can’t seem to start when a carnivorous monster interrupts her middling life on a full moon night. Attacked during an ordinary family dinner, Randi’s relatives are murdered, and she is bitten by the beast. Surviving the slaughter, Randi returns home to her distressed family only to become a monster herself under the next full moon. Nearly devouring her younger brother, she is stopped by the intervention of Division X, a company devoted to the killing and capture of paranormal threats. She awakens in a containment cell the next morning to be given an ultimatum… work for them as a new weapon in the fight against evil or be dissected. A cure to her lycanthropy is promised along the way, and with real motivation to stay alive, Randi pushes herself to the brink to return to her normal life. Small town horrors lie in wait with even smaller heroes to stand against them. Can Randi save them and herself, or will everything crumble to the wills of evil?
Randi gets pulled into the paranormal strike team after most of her aunt’s family is killed by a werewolf. Together with Becca, her niece, they are the only survivors of the attack and nobody believes their story. Except for Randy’s new boss of course.
This fantasy book is bloody and action filled, but at the same time manages to stay quite light and I wouldn’t say cheery exactly, but amusing perhaps? Randi and her family are the main focus of the book, but throughout the plotline there are several supernatural cases that the characters focus on. While Randi is with a team of professionals, her brothers deal with an out-of-this-world situation on their own in a Stranger Things fashion.
I enjoyed the plotline, I enjoyed the characters and the imagery. However, I did not enjoy the places where the imagery turned into telling instead of showing. It occasionally pulled me out of the story.
Parts where a conversation slips off into description of the conversation were many.
“She wants to say more, to tell him about her, but she can’t bring herself to. He quickly picks up on her changed mood and apologizes for his comment, but she says it’s all right.”
The actual conversations were fun to follow, however.
Below are some of my favourite parts:
“Who’s Sebastian?”
“More like who was Sebastian,” one of the Mexican twins answer.
“He died of a heart attack,” the boss states quickly to avoid the topic in front of Randi.
“More like of his heart being attacked,” says the other brother.
“My name’s Alan, by the way,” he says to Randi. “Make sure you put only one L on my tombstone.” He then walks up the path after Eddie.
“Nobody’s dying,” Eddie whispers over his shoulder.
“He’s Edgar,” Alan adds. “But his dad called him Eddie, so I think he’d prefer that on his grave.”
Randi follows them as frightened as they are, not willing to abandon them. “Well, my name’s Randi, in case it’s me you have to bury.”
“That’s the spirit,” says Alan. “At least we all know we’re going to die.”