REVIEW: 'Werewolves of Brooklyn' by Brad Vance
Title: Werewolves of Brooklyn
Author: Brad Vance
Published: August 4, 2015
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Paranormal Romance; Erotic Romance; Historical Fantasy
Length: 233 Pages
Tags: Gay; M/M; Paranormal; Shifter: Werewolves
About Werewolves of Brooklyn
Darien Mackey wasn’t looking for an adventure. For ten years, he’d been happy living in Brooklyn, working as a butcher in the same job, living in the same apartment, dating some “nothing-special” guys. Until one night his buddy Jacob talked him into taking ayahuasca, the soul-changing drug. And Darien had a vision…of a wolf, its all-too-human eyes on him, its paws on his chest, its enquiring mind in his own…
Darien Mackey is changing. He’s more confident, more assertive, hungrier, hornier. And his world is changing around him – his job, his home, his beloved Mechanic’s Library all falling victim to the predations of unscrupulous developers, bent on demolishing the old Brooklyn he loves and replacing it with a forest of condos. But he’s no longer a passive observer of his own life, and as this thing, this power, grows inside of him, he resolves to fight back, to preserve the way of life he loves.
And he’s not alone in the fight. The Lipsius Preservation Society of Brooklyn stands ready to assist in the battle, even though it seems like a bit of a joke to Darien, with its King and its Duke, Marquess, Earl and Viscount.
But there’s nothing funny about his growing attraction to Albeus Finley, King of this mysterious Court. And when slumlords and condo-mongers start to die mysterious, violent deaths at the hands of savage animals, Darien begins to realize that something is afoot in Brooklyn – something supernatural.
And it’s afoot in him, too…
4 HEART READ
Review:
Brad Vance’s Werewolves of Brooklyn combines social commentary, historical realities, paranormal fiction, and gay erotic romance to an extremely satisfying conclusion. Any author able to blend such disparate elements deserves attention.
Darien Mackey is a master butcher at Novack’s Meats. He joins the Novack family for Sunday dinner and lives in an apartment in their building. Otherwise, he reads or occasionally nabs a meaningless lay. Isolation prevents the admission that he’s never found his “tribe.”
Invited by a friend to see a medicine man, Darien ingests a hallucinogen. A lupine aficionado since childhood, Darien encounters a wolf while “tripping.”
He awakens a different man, full of life, only to learn that a developer plans to gentrify his favorite Brooklyn “workers” library, turning it into condos. The developer has also offered Mr. Novack lots of money for the business, which will terminate Darien’s employment and home.
Unwilling to give up the library, Darien speaks up at a community protest regarding its sale. This garners the attention of the Lipsius Preservation Society, a band of men who treat their group like a regal court.
Darien finds “King” Albeus Finley dangerously attractive.
Changes within Darien are occurring too fast to process. And the developer he’s challenged is not pleased. Can and will the Lipsius Society help?
As Darien muses about the library, and Brooklyn’s gritty atmosphere, which is also changing too rapidly for the neighborhood’s worker-bees, he thinks, “No wonder it’s all going away. Because of people like me, who didn’t lift a finger.”
The plot is exciting. I found myself reading faster and faster to discover the ending. Yet it’s much more.
Werewolves of Brooklyn is a fun Halloween read. These are not “nice” werewolves. They’re angry creatures who have seen blood, and will do so again, in an “the ends justify the means,” mentality.
To counter a reader’s squeamishness, Vance challenges us to consider mankind’s history.
As Albeus recounts images of life during and after the Civil war, we must ask ourselves what we would fight for, and how far we would go.
I found myself listening to audiotapes of books written in the late 1800’s, about Lincoln’s view of the civil war. And history was my least favorite topic! But Vance’s rendition made me live the period, and I hungered for more.
To make tough questions more palatable, Vance’s language is like cold ice cream going down our throats on a hot day. “Home was a feeling, not a place, and all those feelings had been shot in the heart, again and again, and now there was no such thing as home anymore,” Albeus realizes. Yet Vance also shows love as the ultimate “home.”
Because Brad Vance is a terrific psychological author, we recognize his characters from our own lives. The fascinating cast of Albeus’ court sets Werewolves of Brooklyn up as a series to anticipate. (Hope, hope.)
Buckle up and let Vance take you on a Halloween thrill ride. Try Werewolves. I bet you can’t read just one Vance novel.
Annie, of Kimmers’ Erotic Book Banter, purchased Werewolves of Brooklyn. We offer our fair and honest opinion on behalf of our readers.
Amazon/KU
Meet the Author
I’m Brad Vance, and I write romance, erotica and science fiction (as Adam Vance). I’m also available for editorial work. You can read more about my services here!
I’m also the narrator of my own audiobooks, A Little Too Broken, Given the Circumstances, and Apollo’s Curse, with more of my back list to come!
You can find them here at Audible and iTunes, as well as other fine retailers including Audiobooks.com, Hoopla, Findaway and more!
For more from Brad be sure and visit his website.
