by Bryce Bentley-Tales
Werewolf on Lowre Few Lane (hereinafter Werewolf) is a young adult novel featuring elements of fantasy and the supernatural. The title is a little bit of a tongue-twister, but plays a role in the story.
Werewolf is told in the third person, with Colton, a young teenager in Ireland, as the main character. The story begins with Colton and his best friend, Jade, investigating an abandoned house on Lowre Few Lane. This house, with its mysterious stone wolf statues, is known by the people of Arklow to be haunted. A pair of twins in the town recently went missing after supposedly going into the house and never coming back out.
After spooking themselves out while spying on the house, Colton and Jade run into the new boy at school, Dylan, who is from Portland, Oregon. Colton has a crush on Dylan; with the exception of Jade, though, no one knows that Colton is gay. Dylan has a secret of his own: He’s a werewolf. The trio develop a friendship quickly and, joined by their friend Thomas, begin an adventure involving werewolves, sorcery, and a portal within the haunted house to another world.
In this other world, they have to battle their greatest foe, Ronan, who threatens the town’s survival. Ronan is a werewolf and sorcerer, whose powers are getting stronger with each passing page. I won’t reveal his motivations here as to not spoil the story.
Sometimes I read books and wish the story had been told from a different perspective; in this case, I thought Colton was a great main character for this story. I enjoyed his character arc – we see his good side, his insecurity, and even a little bit of his bad side. Colton, who is also half-Asian, has to deal with bullying (positive stereotyping) at school. He’s a sympathetic character who I rooted for from the very beginning. I also liked his best friend, Jade; she was a strong female character. It’s unfortunate when books use female characters as tools for the male characters, and happily I can say that Jade was not used in that way!
My major complaint about the story is that I felt like issues were resolved a little too easily or with too many coincidences that worked out for the characters. The regional dialogue was a bit much at times, particularly with a character named Meg who the friends meet in the other world. However, the target audience for this novel is a young reader (probably middle-grade), and not an adult woman like myself. So, I think the story is age-appropriate for that audience.
I think a young person who is looking for an adventurous story with positive representation of gay and female characters would enjoy this book.
The Werewolf on Lowre Few Lane by Bryce Bentley-Tales [ISBN
9781949340075] will be published October 29th, 2018 by NineStar Press.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.