Review: Nightshade

Title: Nightshade
Author: Andrea Cremer
Publisher: Philomel Books (Penguin)
Pages: 454
Series: Nightshade #1
Rating: 5 stars
From the book jacket:
Calla Tor has always known her destiny: After graduating from the Mountain School, she'll be the mate of sexy alpha wolf Ren Laroche and fight with him, side by side, ruling their pack and guarding sacred sites for the Keepers. But when she violates her masters' laws by saving a beautiful human boy out for a hike, Calla begins to question her fate, her existence, and the very essence of the world she has known. By following her heart, she might lose everything -- including her own life. Is forbidden love worth the ultimate sacrifice?

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Nightshade is one of those books that you sit down to review and realize that you don't know how to describe the amount of awesome you want to convey, if that makes sense. I started off wanting to enjoy it, but I wasn't expecting to be completely blown away. Once I started reading, I couldn't put it down. It was simply fantastic.

Calla Tor is an alpha wolf, used to leading the younger members of her pack, the Nightshades. On Samhain, also her eighteenth birthday, she and Bane pack alpha Ren Laroche will go through the union, which is the Guardian wolf version of a wedding, and form a new pack, an offshoot of the Nightshades and Banes. Everything seems to be going according to plan, until Calla saves a human in the woods - and then that same human, Shay Doran, shows up at their school. Calla likes Shay, and he likes her, but Calla has been promised to Ren. That might be something Calla could accept, except for two things: one, her Keeper, Logan, wants her to protect Shay, who seems to be in danger from something she doesn't understand; and two, Shay challenges Calla to think about the world in a way she's never thought about it before - including the fact that her very existence as a Guardian may not be what she has always believed it to be.

Calla is easily one of my favorite protagonists. She's a totally kick-butt heroine, totally able and willing to defend herself, but she's not scared to let other people see her cry. Despite the fact that she's actually a wolf, she struck me as more human than almost any other female protagonist I've encountered. I really don't know how else to describe it - she could step off the page and be a living, breathing person, wolf and all. And I loved the dynamics between all the characters, too. Ansel and Bryn and Mason and Neville and Fey and Dax and Sabine and Cosette...I just love them. And Efron made me shudder. Andrea Cremer does characters incredibly well.

And then of course, there's Ren and Shay. Usually, when I read a book where the lead girl is torn between two boys, I know exactly what "team" I'm on from the start. But Ren and Shay are both so real and such compelling characters that I honestly don't know. At the moment, I'm thinking Shay, but I love Ren, too. They both have their strong points and their flaws - they, like Calla, could easily be real. I am beyond impressed with the characters I met in Nightshade.

And then there's the story. I need the sequel, like, now. I want to know the truth about the Guardians and the Keepers and Shay and the Scion, and I have to know who Bosque is, and and and.... you get the idea. Nightshade has a plot that sucked me in and kept me turning pages and left me wanting more.

Read this book. Just do it. You won't be disappointed.

Links:
Andrea Cremer's website