Disclaimer: No spoilers from Wolfsbane, but read with caution if you have not read Nightshade.

Wolfsbane is Andrea Cremer’s follow-up to Nightshade. At the end of Nightshade, Shay and Calla were taken by the Searchers, witches who are the enemy of the Guardians’ (the wolves) masters, the Keepers, who are also witches. Calla and the other young wolves have been raised to blindly accept everything the Keepers say, believing that the Searchers are the enemy, when it may be the other way around. Shay is the key to this enlightenment, as Calla never would have begun to learn the truth if Shay had not convinced her to read and research the Keepers’ forbidden texts and history. Now the two of them are in the Searchers’ care and Calla is not sure who she can trust. But the Searchers only confirm more of what Calla and Shay have already started to learn: that the Keepers have woven a web of lies to keep the Guardians in their debt and that there are two sides to every story.

There were some new characters introduced in Wolfsbane, namely, the Searchers. Ariadne, who goes by Adne, was my favorite new character. She is a bit younger than Calla and Shay but she is a very powerful witch because she is a Weaver…someone who can open doorways that lead anywhere. She is almost always emotionally in control, intelligent, and spunky. I also really enjoyed Monroe, an older Searcher, who was not the real leader but sure acted like one and held the group together like a true leader. Calla never described him thus, but I think she would agree that Monroe has alpha qualities. He definitely commands respect, but he is also a very understanding person.

To be honest, Wolfsbane fell short for me by the end. It started off really well and exciting as can be evidenced by my status update early on Goodreads: “Only on page 53 and I’m pretty sure I just learned two big secrets! This is so exciting! Someone’s been a bad wolf…” But maybe sort-of learning these secrets in the beginning caused the rest of the story to lose steam. Do not get me wrong, there are plenty of exciting battles and surprising casualties that keep the adventurous aspect going, but whereas Nightshade was excellent, Wolfsbane was just okay or good. I even loved Shadow Days more than Wolfsbane. Since this novella is in between Nightshade and Wolfsbane, I do not know if I can classify this as a sophomore slump, but that is the nearest term that I can think of. I really love the concept of this trilogy as a whole, but I feel that by the end of Wolfsbane, Calla, Shay, and the others were not quite where they needed to be to keep things interesting.

Side note: For those of you who are firmly Team Ren, I am sorry, but he barely makes an appearance in this book. Me, on the other hand…I have never picked one guy over the other, but after reading Wolfsbane, I am a firm believer that Calla just needs to be on her own. Stay single girl, because you cannot make up your mind and you have tons of conflicting emotions.

In fact, the young wolves are out of commission until the very end of the book because this is Calla’s story and Calla is elsewhere. Maybe it would mess with continuity, but I feel like the story would have rounded out better if Cremer had added the point-of-view of one or more of the other young wolves so that the reader could know what was going on Vail.

I felt like there was a lot of waiting around in this book and not enough action…not enough things getting done. Like I mentioned, there is adventure, there are battles, but I did not feel like they appropriately moved the plot along to where I feel it should have been by the end of the book. It felt like Wolfsbane was just a bridge connecting Nightshade and Bloodrose.I did like Wolfsbane, but I just do not feel it is up to par with Nightshade. I hope that Andrea Cremer really amps it up in Bloodrose and gives us a satisfying conclusion.

Are you Team REN, Team SHAY, or Team CALLA-STAY-SINGLE?

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Related posts:

Nightshade

Shadow Days: A Nightshade Novella