Rating: 2.25 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | All Romance | Amazon UK
Length: Novel
Henry has spent the majority of his life in foster care, but now at nineteen he is renting a small apartment in the basement of the home of Dr. Kathleen Melloy, a university professor. Henry is adept at camouflaging himself in shadows, as well as having a talent for smelling the emotions and possessing a strong sense of impending events.
Jamey is living with friends after being thrown out of his family home by his father after he caught Jamey in an intimate embrace with another boy. Jamey is the new guy at Larkin’s where Henry works and the first time they see each other the atmosphere sizzles with desire and so much more. Jamey has had an extremely strong religious upbringing and feels guilty about his sexuality, meaning that he struggles with this intense lust and emotions he feels towards Henry.
However, this is not the worst of the tribulations Henry and Jamey face. Both young men discover that they are not as “mundane” as they have always believed and their first kiss awakens the Watchers, diabolical creatures who are tasked with shielding the human world from the magical one, at any cost. Jamey and Henry realize their true identities place them on a different path than working at Larkin’s and their destiny is to undertake an important quest to set magic free.
In the week leading up to Halloween, I wanted to immerse myself in a great paranormal story and during the first several chapters I thought The Werewolf and His Boy would be exactly what I was looking for. Unfortunately, though, Warren Rochelle’s novel fell flat for me.
I liked how Rochelle tried to make The Werewolf and His Boy stand out from others in the genre and the mix between mythology and magic is a good hook, but for me, the background elements became too complicated. I found myself referring back to Dr. Melloy’s “story-time session” when I would have ideally liked to have been concentrating on the present story.
Although Jamey and Henry’s relationship initially has so much potential, I was frustrated and disappointed with the middle section of the book where the relationship between them stagnates. I appreciate that much of this has to do with the fact that Rochelle instead concentrates on the werewolf and Godling alter-egos of the young men, but I was still left dissatisfied.
I definitely enjoy stories that feature strong characters, but I felt the most likable of those in The Werewolf and His Boy was Dr. Melloy. It is her I empathized with at several key moments when it should have been Henry and Jamey whom I cared more about.
There are aspects of Rochelle’s novel that I am sure will entice readers, including the mystery, danger, and magic, but The Werewolf and his Boy did not excite me enough for me to give it a personal recommendation.
