Frostbite

August 10, 2009
Nipped by a wolf during an Arctic camping expedition, Cheyenne Clark suddenly finds herself feeling ferally frisky when the moon is up in Wellington's far from routine werewolf tale. It turns out that Monty Powell, the loner who gives Chey refuge, is no ordinary guy, but the werewolf who turned her. But then Chey is no ordinary camper: she was sent to draw Monty out by a band of professional hunters who want the oil beneath the vast acreage Monty prowls—and to avenge the death of her father, whom Monty coincidentally slaughtered two decades before. Wellington (23 Hours
) gets surprising mileage out of this tortuously improbable plot, hinging it on Chey's difficulty choosing between the gun-toting human mercenaries who are using her as bait and Monty, a victim of supernatural circumstances who understands her plight better than anyone else.

October 12, 2009
Beginning with the zombie novel Monster Island, Wellington established a pattern of gripping, rapidly written reboots of traditional horror tropes. He generally composes themAonline in blog format, with input from his readers, and then shifts to print (and yanks the online version) once they are polished. This produces fast-paced, gritty works like Frostbite, his first werewolf novel. Protagonist Chey travels to the Canadian wilderness, seeking to exact revenge on the werewolf that killed her father. Instead, she becomes infected. When she finds herself being trailed by hunters, she has to choose sides. Verdict Aimed at readers who want straightforward, stripped-down monster stories without romance or other fluff, this book delivers admirably.

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2009
Chey, a young woman with a hidden agenda, is almost killed when she is swept away by a flash flood in a remote area of the rugged Canadian Northwest Territories. Her survival looks short-lived when she is treed by wolves chased off by an enormous and different kind of wolf that manages to leap high enough to scratch her ankle. But she survives, and the next morning a strange masked man finds her and takes her to a cabin, whose owner she overhears plotting against her. Told in four parts, the action shifts times and locales with cinematic swiftness. Longtime horror fans will probably appreciate Wellingtons edgy tale more than will nascent lycanthrophiles, for these werewolves are truly alien and scary. The book undeniably ensnares the reader with its fearful sense of foreboding.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)