Book Review: Curse Of The Wolf Girl by Martin Millar

Nowadays you can’t open the the TV listings, entertainment pages or go into a book store without coming across a reference to either werewolves or vampires. However, unlike the good old days when they were considered straight ahead creatures of evil who would as soon rip out your throat or drink your blood as look at you, they’ve been turned into tragic romantic heroes (or heroines) becoming the favoured subject matter of something called paranormal romance – enough to make Bram Stoker rise from the dead and drive a stake in anybody’s heart. I can only guess this latest twist on the bad boy theme — kind of makes you miss the love ’em and leave ’em cad or even the brooding, dark-haired guy with the mysterious past of the old days — will continue to rake in millions for publishers across North America as the way the number of titles falling into this category continue to proliferate suggests the public’s appetite for this schlock isn’t going to wane anytime soon.

Unfortunately with the market being swamped with dreck, interesting titles run the risk of being lost in the shuffle. One of the best of the lot was Martin Millar’s The Lonely Werewolf Girl. In it we were introduced to Kalix, a teenage werewolf who not only suffered from anxiety but was also saddled with an eating disorder and a nasty addiction to the opium derivative laudanum. The youngest daughter of the ruling clan of Scottish werewolves, Kalix was forced into exile in London for savaging her brutal father, the Thane. His death set off a brutal war of succession which split the clan in half and literally set brother against brother. Although Kalix really couldn’t have cared less who became the new thane, she, the humans she befriended (Moonglow and Daniel), and their friend Vex, a fire elemental from another dimension, were all caught up in the resulting battle and barely survived.

Along with her fashion designing sister Thrix, punk rock cousins Beauty and Delicious, Vex’s adopted aunt Queen Malvaria. and other assorted members of the werewolf clan, Kalix now returns in Millar’s latest book Curse Of The Wolf Girl published in North America by Underland Press. With her brother Marcus enthroned as new Thane of the clan there are hopes that things can return to normal for everybody. While for most of them that means returning to the business of living peacefully in their private estates in Scotland, Kalix and a few others are firmly settled in London and have no desire to return home. As a result of her misspent early years Kalix didn’t have the educational opportunities others in the clan were given and has reached the age of 17 a functional illiterate. So, when the book opens we find her and Vex preparing to begin their first days at remedial collage where they will join with others hoping to learn basic literacy and math skills.

Unfortunately there are those unwilling to let sleeping dogs lie (or werewolves either for that matter). Underneath the calm exterior there is simmering resentment among some of those who backed Marcus’s brother Sarapen as Thane and who wish to seek revenge on Kalix for having killed him in the final battle. Even while they plot to try and hunt her down, the guild of werewolf hunters have been quietly rebuilding their depleted ranks (they suffered horrible losses during the war of succession when they got in the crossfire so to speak) with dedicated hunters from Eastern Europe wishing to capitalize on the free market. They are hopeful that the combination of new members and modern surveillance technology will give them enough of an advantage they’ll be able to exact revenge for their previous losses. Finally, a princess of a rival fire elemental dimension who has long been jealous of Queen Malvaria’s fashion triumphs because of her friendship with the werewolf designer Thrix, forms a secret alliance with a traitor in her rival’s court that could not only see Malvaria overthrown, but the death of a great many werewolves.

What separated Millar’s first book from so many other “werewolf” books, was how easy it was for the reader to take for granted his characters were werewolves. Sure Kalix was a ferocious warrior who had no qualms about ripping the throat out of any werewolf hunter or enemy werewolf she encountered (she was born during a full moon as a werewolf and is able to change whether the moon is shining or not and has a battle madness that gives her a strength and speed far surpassing beings twice her size), but she’s also a scared and confused teenager who was badly scarred by an abusive father. In Curse Of The Wolf Girl the characters continue to be interesting not only because of what they are, but who they are, and Martin has taken great care to continue their development in a very real way. In fact once you’re able to suspend your disbelief about werewolves, fairies, and elementals existing, everything about them and the world surrounding them is so believable you’ll have no problem accepting their reality.

It doesn’t hurt that Millar has a wonderful sense of the absurd that injects necessary doses of humour into the proceedings. The fashion industry bears the brunt of most of his comedy – for all the right reasons – through Queen Malvaria’s obsessions with clothes and accessories, especially handbags and shoes. However, he also turns his sharp eye on popular music, comics, and a variety of other popular culture affectations. Yet, unlike others, there’s nothing mean or nasty about Millar’s humour. It’s the type of affectionate teasing you’d expect from someone who admires something but who’s also well aware of the ridiculous lengths people will go to when something becomes an obsession – from collecting comics to yearning for the perfect shade of lipstick.

If you’re not used to Millar’s style of writing, short chapters that switch back and forth between his various characters and plot lines, you might find it a little difficult to settle into the rhythm of the story at first. However, once you are accustomed to how he works you’ll soon begin to appreciate it for the ease with which it allows you to assimilate the information necessary for following the various plot lines and keeping all the characters, and how they relate to each other, straight in your head. Bouncing between the mortal realm, two separate fire elemental kingdoms, the world of the fairies, and the home of the Scottish werewolves while keeping track of a multitude of characters is no easy task, but Millar has done it with an ease that borders on magical. (Perhaps he had some assistance from some of his friends from the other dimensions who appear on these pages – his familiarity with what goes on in some of them seems a little too complete for him not to have made the occasional visit there.) While you’ll have an easier time of it if you’ve already read The Lonely Werewolf Girl, Curse Of The Wolf Girl is self-contained enough to be enjoyed on its own.

In Curse Of The Wolf Girl Martin Millar once again proves that he’s one of the more innovative and interesting fantasy writers around. He tackles subject matter that has been worked to death recently and makes it seem brand new. While his writing isn’t going to appeal to the paranormal romance crowd, and for that we should all be eternally grateful, for the rest of us it’s a breath of fresh air in a genre that’s become increasingly stale. If we’re really lucky Kalix and her friends might supplant a certain whiny teenager and her undead heartthrobs on movie screens. However, even if that doesn’t occur at least you know you can run to the books for safety, and Millar has left open the potential for a third. If you like your humour with a bite and your paranormal grounded in reality, then look no further. Martin Millar’s books are just what you’ve been looking for.