asakiyume | Laura's Wolf, by Lia Silver (Reply)

Laura’s Wolf makes me think I should take up reading more romances—but maybe I should just take up reading more Lia Silver. I hear she’s at work on a sequel to Laura’s Wolf, which is excellent news, because these characters are **wonderful**, and I could read about them all day.

I never thought of myself as a potential romance fan, much less a paranormal romance fan, but I loved this story about a werewolf marine. If I say “werewolf marine,” you’re probably either already sold on the notion or else rolling your eyes. If you’re already sold, boy do you have a treat in store, because this takes that concept and fleshes it out, makes it so real that you can not only see and hear it, but taste, touch and smell—especially smell—it. You can live it. And if you’re rolling your eyes, well, consider giving it a try anyway. The two main characters, Roy (the werewolf marine) and Laura (a con artist gone straight), are wonderful, loveable, complicated people. They’re both hurting, but they’re capable of goofing around, too. Here’s a scene from when they first meet:

“The power’s on. I was wounded in Afghanistan. Electric lights hurt my eyes now.”
All three statements were true, at least. He hoped she wouldn’t ask for more details.
To his relief, she only asked, “Which branch of service?”
“Marines.”
“Semper fi?”
“Oorah,” Roy said automatically.
“What was that?”
“It means ‘yes, sir,’ or ‘good job,’ or ‘go for it.’ Or ‘someone just said our motto.’”

And a little later on, there’s this:

A dark flush stained Laura’s cheeks. “Now you’re Captain America. Aren’t you going to judge me?”
“Nah. I grew up in a rough neighborhood. Lots of my friends did worse.”
Laura sat there biting her lip, looking exactly as miserable as she had when she started. She’d worried that he’d judge her, he hadn’t judged her, and yet…
“What are you not telling me?” Roy inquired.
“You’re going to hate me,” she said again. “I— I kind of want to extend the moment while you don’t hate me yet, even though now that you know it’s coming, you already probably… pre-hate me.”
“Laura, this is nuts. Just tell me. It can’t possibly be as bad you think.”

Light, believable humor shared by real people. I mentioned they’re both hurting: Roy has been serving in Afghanistan, and Laura found herself in the midst of a terrifying event at her last job. Silver deftly balances scenes as different as battles, lovemaking, and friendly banter. She brings you to the brink of tears--and then Roy or Laura will say something funny and tender, and you’re laughing again.

And it’s not just Roy and Laura: it’s the other characters as well. Even characters who appear for no more than a paragraph linger in the mind, because they’re so vividly presented.

I was surprised by just how much I liked the werewolf/supernatural aspect, too. The special powers that go along with being a werewolf were smoothly introduced and fun to discover, and the descriptions of the joys of being a wolf were pure bliss. A nice artifact of wolf-dom when werewolves return to human form is scent names--thinking of people in terms of their unique scent.

There’s an exciting central conflict involving a wicked antagonist, but what interested me just as much was Silver’s exploration of a second, interior antagonist: PTSD. Not, I hasten to add, in a long-faced, public-service-announcement fashion (though she does include information on PTSD and useful resources at the end of the book), but as an integral and devastating part of the characters’ lives. In terms of the story’s structure, you could say all this happened in a long dénouement, but it felt nothing like that: it felt like a third act, a perfect internal battle, complementing the external battle that’s already been won.

I loved the story and highly recommend it.