Ah, drug addicted werewolves. Alright, so that's not all the novel has in it though. It's about Ayla, a werewolf, and her female partner Shannon, a PI, but not a werewolf. In the universe werewolves are cautiously accepted by most humans, there are even overgrown parks for them to run and hunt in. And changing booths on street corners. They're also not just moon wolves, but can change (or not change) at will.

Shannon starts the mystery off by being hired to look for a missing werewolf girl. The mystery of what in the world is going on spirals from there.

It wasn't a bad novel. It seemed obvious to me that the whole novel could have been a metaphor for most peoples who have encountered bigotry here on Earth (including but not only homosexuals).

On the other hand, some of the grammar, or maybe it was the copy editing, wasn't great. Every once in a while a sentence that made absolutely no sense would stop me cold and pull me out of the story.

Not a bad book, and I'd be interested to see a sequel. Solid three stars. ( )

Reviewed for MonsterLibrarian.com

Some books wrap themselves up in the trope of a genre like a comfortable blanket, and others seem to transcend genre and theme with their very nature. Silver Kiss is one of these. Labeled an "urban werewolf novel" not true urban fantasy it's the tale of Ayla, a werewolf, and Shannon, a human, together trying to make a new life with Ayla's Pack and family. Except the recent murder of Ayla's cousin Adam (which drew her back to the Pack in the first place) might not be an isolated event. To top it off there's a new street drug out there that's highly addictive to werewolves and triggers their animal instincts, making them rage filled animals ready to fight. Sure enough Shannon and Ayla get dragged (and blackmailed) in, ending up way over their heads.
Silver Kiss is a werewolf mystery, not an urban fantasy or paranormal romance, with a strong overlying theme of community and family acceptance, how it relates to humans, werewolves, and lesbians. Ayla is a high strung character, possibly the book's only flaw as her nervous energy infects a book that otherwise has very much normalized the concept of werewolves and werewolf culture. Her emotionality does, at times, distract from the main plot, or close it down as her independent streak leads her to not trust the people around her, not even family and friends. However Clark has spun an interesting balance of world elements, the paranormal and the struggle for normalcy in what's considered deviancy even in our supposedly modern and accepting culture. Highly recommended for library collections, with a good mystery and moments of surprising depth, Silver Kiss is the sort of stand out, inclusive fiction that more collections should be proud to have on their shelves.
Contains: sex, violence, cursing ( )

After many years as a lone wolf, Ayla decided to return home and rejoin her Pack. Her return seems to be going well at first, but then her partner, Shannon, signs onto a missing persons case and Ayla can't help but get involved. As a feral wolf, a violent anti-werewolf group, a new designer drug, and Pack politics complicate things further, Ayla begins to question whether coming home was a good idea after all.

The concept of Pack as a social construct has been interesting to me. It resembles a large extended family full of its own rules, gossip, and internal conflicts. Coming home to that kind of structure can be rough, and Naomi does an excellent job of showing the awkwardness and the internal struggle between the need for independence and the obligations of belonging to the group.

The slowest part of this book for me was the first few pages. The getting-ready is just not a strong opener for me. I mean I get why it's there, introducing the characters, setting up the world, letting you in on her doubts and insecurities, and so on. However, it's kind of dull as far as intro, and I think things could have started off right at the ceremony, but that's me.

Right after that, however, I quickly settled into the story. Naomi has a crisp, clean prose style that makes this world seem vivid and real, as though I could just head on down the highway and meet up with Ayla and her friends. It was easy to care about them, easy to want to get to know them, so that when the dangers start to stack up, I wanted to keep reading to not only what was going to happen, but to make sure they were all okay.

Each plot point seemed to hit the right note at the right time, allowing the story to unravel at a comfortable pace. Ayla was given room to actually think about her actions and the dangers involved, so that their choices, for good or ill, had greater impact when made.

This books totally absorbed me, and I started to get annoyed when anything -- ya know, like work, family, chores, eating, going pee -- got in the way of my finishing. It was a great read, and I would definitely recommend it. ( )