Confessions of a Werewolf Supermodel

By Ronda Thompson

Lou was just an ordinary teen until one night when her date tried to rape her. At which point she changed into a werewolf and really rocked his world. When she returned to her normal self she ran away from home and a possible murder charge and fled to New York City where she found work as a model becoming so successful and famous that she earned the title of supermodel.
As it turns out, after the first werewolf transformation, her then ordinary features suddenly rearranged themselves into extraordinary and what had been just an average teen was now drop-dead gorgeous. Plus her werewolf metabolism and strength meant she never had to diet or worry about what she ate, unlike most models, let alone women. Really the only thing she had to worry about was the unexpected, unpredictable wolfish outbreaks she had been experiencing lately, like suddenly sprouting fur when she is supposed to be modeling scanty underwear. Also when she get wets she smells like a wet dog. So even though she is beautiful, thin and powerful, she still carries a burden everywhere she goes.
What she doesn't understand is the sudden wolfish breakthroughs that are throwing her off her stride. She hasn't turned werewolf since that first traumatic incident several years ago. But here lately she is constantly sprouting fur and fangs and claws without warning. Something has certainly changed but what can it be? Then the reports of young murdered woman start turning up, young women that bore a striking resemblance to herself. Young women who it seems may have been attacked by a werewolf. And that werewolf's ultimate target turns out to be Lou. Lou is in for the fight of her life and going rogue and releasing her inner werewolf may be the only way she can stay alive.

This was a pretty good story, more so in the beginning than towards the end. Lou's predicament trying to deal with her werewolf outbreaks is pretty amusing and her down-to-earth, unpretentious personality are very appealing. But the story lost me when in turned into a gruesome murder mystery, with the mangled bodies of beautiful young women turning up all over the place. It was just a little to bloody-minded for me. Also, it is obviously the beginning of a series of novels about Lou the werewolf supermodel because it has a very open-ended conclusion, with several mysteries about Lou and her werewolfism yet to be solved and without Lou falling in love with any of the eligible and attractive men that parade through the novel, starting with her photographer, and including the cop investigating the murders and the private detective slash rock musician she hired to track down her real parents. Since I am not looking to get into a series, I prefer stand-alone novels, I will only rate this one fair. Also I didn't care for the violence and murders. It seems to me that with its lighthearted title that the book should have been more in line with the title, less gore and lots more fun.

Kitty and the Midnight Hour

By Carrie Vaughn

Kitty is a late night talk radio host and her topic is the weird and strange, the supernatural, which is a natural for her since she is a supernatural: she's a werewolf. Nobody else knows except for the members of her werewolf pack and a few of the local vampires. She hasn't even told her mother.
Kitty was attacked one night, first by her date and later on by a werewolf. She was taken in by the attacking wolf's pack and thus became the youngest member of the pack, which works just like a real wolf pack, with all the dominance and submissiveness, and the crawling and whining that is typical of wolves. As the newest member of her pack, Kitty is subservient to all the other werewolves. Not only does Kitty find herself at the bottom of the pack, she also has to turn a portion of her work earnings over to the alpha male and female, Carl and Meg.
Since Kitty started leading the talk on her radio show to the supernatural, ratings have soared and her show is being broadcast by more and more stations and Kitty starts to make more money. This makes Carl happy and yet unhappy. He likes the extra money but he doesn't like the extra publicity and neither do the local vampires. Kitty manages to win Carl over to her side, briefly, but some one has hired a hitman to take Kitty out. No only does she have to protect herself from the hitman, she has to discover who hired him and also try to track down a rogue werewolf who is attacking women and making the werewolf community look very bad at a time when humans are just finding out about them, thanks to Kitty spilling the beans on her radio show.

This was an OK story. The wolf pack interactions were very wolf-like, uncomfortably so. I kept waiting for her to say, "Now wait a minute, I'm not really a wolf and I refuse to act like one." She does eventually come to a similar conclusion although it is not so clearly stated. Another problem I had was the indifference the human world showed to the revelation of werewolves and vampires in their midst. This would be a huge story, generating a media circus this likes of which would rival baby Jessica in the well (for those of you old enough to remember that) but in Kitty's world it hardly even raises an eyebrow. Another problem I had was how easily the police accepted Kitty's werewolf activities. At one point Kitty eats a fellow werewolf's throat out and kills him and the cops pretty much just let her go home, no questions asked. Very understanding cops for ones just introduced to whole idea of werewolves and vampires. Also, I found the book a little too violent and gruesome for my taste. From the ending I would say that this book is definitely intended to be the first in a series. Even though I had a quite a few problems with the story, I will probably continue to follow the adventures of Kitty if the next books in the series happen to come my way.
The book cover features a woman dressed rather provocatively and a few blurbs that describe the novel as sexy. However, the sex was rather minimal (I can only recall one sex scene and one almost-sex scene) so if you are looking for a sex romp, this is not it.

For another review of the story, see Publishers Weekly.