Wolfsbane and Mistletoe

Wolfsbane and Mistletoe by Anthology
Published by Penguin on April 13, 2023
Genres: Werewolves
Pages: 340
Format: Hardcover
Source: Purchased
Purchase on: Amazon// Barnes & Noble// BookBub
Add to: Goodreads // StoryGraph


The editors of Many Bloody Returns deliver the perfect howl-iday gift, with new tales from Patricia Briggs, Carrie Vaughn, and many more.

New York Times bestselling authors Charlaine Harris, Patricia Briggs, Keri Arthur, and Carrie Vaughn—along with eleven other masters of the genre—offer all-new stories on werewolves and the holidays, a fresh variation on the concept that worked so well with birthdays and vampires in Many Bloody Returns.

The holidays can bring out the beast in anyone. They are particularly hard for lycanthropes. Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner have harvested the scariest, funniest and saddest werewolf tales by an outstanding pack of authors, best read by the light of a full moon with a silver bullet close at hand.

Whether wolfing down a holiday feast (use your imagination) or craving some hair of the dog on New Year's morning, the werewolves in these frighteningly original stories will surprise, delight, amuse, and scare the pants off readers who love a little wolfsbane with their mistletoe.

review

Our December book for the Roadside Reads Bookcast, Wolfsbane and Mistletoe edited by Charlaine Harris was a wild ride. Not necessarily a great ride, but wild nonetheless. It seems my trouble with anthologies continues as there were more misses than hits in this book. Sure, there were a handful of authors that really hit the mark and made me laugh or feel something. Simon R Green had a great writing style that immediately made me run to goodreads to check out more of his work and add stuff to my TBR pile (here’s hoping I’ll get to his first Nightside book in 2017!) Carrie Vaughn‘s Kitty Norville short story seemed cute and I definitely added her series to my TBR. And Keri Arthur has so much stuff out, I don’t know where to begin!

All that said, the rest of the stories left me fairly unimpressed. The book starts off slow, peaks in the middle, and dribbled off at the end. It could have used better editing and perhaps looked at other authors that may have done a better job at creating holiday stories given the constraints. Some of the stories barely felt like werewolf stories, while others felt like it had nothing to do with Christmas.

To be honest, I think Wolfsbane and Mistletoe edited by Charlaine Harris would be better off being borrowed from the library or given as a white elephant gift than to be purchased by a serious werewolf story collector.

two-stars

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