Author: TJ Klune
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Length: 400 Pages
Category: Paranormal, Shifters
At a Glance: This book delivered all I could hope for and more.
Reviewed By: Lindsey
Blurb: Ox was twelve when his daddy taught him a very valuable lesson. He said that Ox wasn’t worth anything and people would never understand him. Then he left.
Ox was sixteen when he met the boy on the road, the boy who talked and talked and talked. Ox found out later the boy hadn’t spoken in almost two years before that day, and that the boy belonged to a family who had moved into the house at the end of the lane.
Ox was seventeen when he found out the boy’s secret, and it painted the world around him in colors of red and orange and violet, of Alpha and Beta and Omega.
Ox was twenty-three when murder came to town and tore a hole in his head and heart. The boy chased after the monster with revenge in his bloodred eyes, leaving Ox behind to pick up the pieces.
It’s been three years since that fateful day—and the boy is back. Except now he’s a man, and Ox can no longer ignore the song that howls between them.
Review: There are so many feelings reading this book. I won’t lie—there is angst. A heaping load of it. Sooooo much angst. But in a good way. Yes, at times I wanted to throw my kindle and curse TJ Klune for doing this to me again—but I didn’t, because I know I will be glad I didn’t destroy the item that allowed me to continue to ensconce myself in the beauty of the story I was reading.
Wolfsong is story about love. It’s a story that is about family, connection and choices. It’s a story about how one human, Ox, is so much more than he understands, and there is a world out there far more beautiful and scary than he can fathom.
The story is told from Ox’s perspective. We watch him grow from a twelve-year-old boy whose drunken, no-good father abandons him and his mom, into a man in his late 20s, who has grown into his own. We see as he meets a little tornado named Joe Bennett, on his sixteenth birthday, a ten-year-old who he unknowingly heals (as much as one can be healed after what Joe has been through), and by doing so brings a form of peace to the entire family. A family that embraces him in their lives and eventually he becomes a part of. A family he later learns are werewolves; and not just any werewolves, but basically werewolf royalty.
Joe and Ox are mates, but they have a rough road to travel, and the world Ox finds himself in isn’t only beauty and love, but is filled with monsters and nightmares come to life. And suddenly –
“Three years, one month, twenty-six days…”
They are apart, and there is anger as well as a whole host of emotions. Both from what made Joe leave in the first place, and simply because Joe left. Ox was left behind and we are with him as he struggles with his sadness, his fear, his insecurities and then his resentment. While they are separated they both mature, their lives forever changed from what they have seen. They change, because time has passed, and life moved on, decisions had to be made.
Joe returns, no longer a kid, but a man… a man Ox is pretty pissed at, and he is not the only one. And that’s something I absolutely loved about this novel—stuff that pissed me off, pissed Ox off. I couldn’t see myself letting it go, and I was happy to see he didn’t either. And a good part of that was due to the secondary characters. As always, TJ Klune knows how to write supporting characters, and he nailed it with this book. There are a ton of them, from the Bennett Family to Ox’s coworkers at the garage, and Ox’s mom. They bring humor, anger, sadness, comfort and perspective to our MCs. Each of them bringing something to the table that Ox and Joe need, whether they know it or not. ***side note: pretty sure Rico is my spirit animal***
The path before them is not easy as Ox and Joe work to forgive and adjust to who they have grown into. The years changed them both, and they need to learn who each other has become and all the while deal with werewolf politics and monsters in their midst.
The prose is fabulous and evocative. The plot points flowed in a natural way and were crucial to the story as a whole. As in some of TJ Klune’s previous, more serious, works there is recurrence of text throughout the story, but it is there purposefully and essential to the characters and the plot. I am overwhelmed with emotions finishing this latest novel, in the best way possible.
Be ready to laugh, be ready to want to throw things, be ready to cry your eyes out… But in the end it will be worth every second.
You can buy Wolfsong here:
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