The following is a TBR Day review by fellow reader Sonia. Dancing with Werewolves by Carole Nelson Douglas is copyright 2007 and is available in paperback and ebook at your favorite retailer.
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This month I read and finished Dancing With Werewolves: Delilah Street, Paranormal Investigator by Carole Nelson Douglas. Dancing With Werewolves is a paranormal with vampires and werewolves and weather witches. This book has been sitting on my TBR pile for months.. During this time, I have picked it up, read a page and put it down again. I never got past the first couple pages. This, I suspect, has to do with the prologue and the first couple chapters. Not that it is a bad prologue, but it is just that I dislike prologues. This particular prologue explains some of the background, how vamps and werewolves and witches were discovered in the year 2000. In any case, Delilah – or Del, as she is called – is a TV reporter. The first few chapters are slow.
In the opening scene, she is reporting the murder of cows from a Kansas cornfield. The real story doesn’t start until she gets to Las Vegas. She leaves her job and goes there because of events in the first few chapters, but considering how much I disliked those first few chapters, she could have just started the story in Las Vegas. Del has an annoying habit of referencing people and movies I have never heard of (for example, who is George M. Cohan?) but I suppose it is alright because that is part of who she is; it is a part of her that comes out most visually in her vintage clothes. Anyway, I am glad I didn’t stop reading as I was tempted to because the story gets lots better somewhere around the middle of the book.
There are lots of interesting characters – a mysterious albino rocker, ex-FBI agent who douses for bodies, a creature called (named by Del, who knows what his real name is?) Quicksilver, CinSims (short for Cinema Simulacrum), the dead daughter of a werewolf mobster. There is a particularly intriguing piece of silver jewelry given to her by the rocker. It keeps changing from collars to necklaces to bracelets to anklets to keys and it helps her get away from various vampires and werewolves. Despite the rather dubious beginning, by the end it was very interesting.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
I got this book for my e-reader and started and could not put it down. I loved the mystery, the details and the way she plays hurt and unloved but willing to be loved and take that chance all while making it her’s.
i just bought your 2nd in the series tonight and will be plugging away at it all week.
Thanks for the great book, I am impressed and will be a dedicated reader of yours.
Chris
I’m so glad I read this review. I’ve got the book but hadn’t started reading it yet. I’ll add it back to my queue as one to read and review.
Janet Evanovich’s Plum books are way beyond mystery, though they’re shelved there. They have a continuing romance triangle, lots of outrageous humor, yet
some nasty, grungy criminal elements. Traditional mystery like years ago are
found today in “cozy” titles set among “hobby” areas like handicrafts, gardening,
cooking, etc.
I read War of the Oaks a couple years ago. I had a hard time finding it at first because it wasn’t in the library and it was out of print for a while. Well I haven’t read your other books so … I think the last straight mystery I read was by Lawrence Block. Or maybe the ones about Stephanie Plum by Janet Evanovich were the last? I am not sure. The Stephanie Plum books are marketed as mystery but they don’t read like the mysteries I remember from back when I used to read mysteries more often.
I wrote high fantasy and contemporary science fiction in the ‘80s. I think Emma Bull’s War for the Oaks (fey in downtown Minneapolis) was one of the first “urban fantasies.” But world building is world building, even when it’s in non-sf/fantasy genres like mystery. My Midnight Louie feline PI mystery series not only has a part-time cat narrator, but the Las Vegas it depicts can be realistically detailed, like the Star Trek experience at the Las Vegas Hilton, or totally fantasy, like the Elvis-themed hotel, the Kingdome.
Got it. Should have guessed. lol Yes, I’ve been reading urban fantasy since high school, but I read fantasy and sci-fi long before that. I don’t think the rules as regards world building and being able to figure out the world from clues in the story itself is all that different.
Not stupid at all. I wanted to conserve space; maybe didn’t need to. Urban Fantasy, and Publishers Weekly, yes.
This is probably a stupid question but what is UF? PW is probably Publisher Weekly, right?
Google Alerts sent me. I only recently found out about GA from a writers’ group. I’d like to point out that DWW got a starred review from Publishers Weekly, which reviews almost all paranormal titles and only gives starred reviews rarely on the consensus of several reviewers.
But that may be why you didn’t like the things you didn’t like. There is a more mainstream prologue and background because of my large mainstream and mystery readership. PW liked it for being different. Veteran UF readers probably don’t. I think being different ultimately has its own rewards and am glad many of you are willing to give the series a chance.
Interesting point about the prologue putting you off — when trying to decide which book to review for the TBR day, I realised I’d actually read the first chapters of quite a few, and just wasn’t interested enough to continue!
I was wondering about this book too, so thanks for the review.
Sarai — okay. yeah there is a werewolf mobsters. in fact, from what i understand, the head mobsters are all werewolves
Jan — welcome. and yeah it gets a lot better closer to the middle. wish it started out that way
I didn’t buy this book when I saw it in the bookstore. I’m more likely to buy it and read it now with the promise it does get better after the first few chapters! The characters do sound interesting. Thanks for the review.
I know it was a C but I thought at least you reviewed it. No one else has (either good or bad) the only thing is it reminded me of why I bought it (Kansas from there) and the fact that there is a werewolf mobster
Actually I bought this book for the simple fact of werewolves and I wanted to see where it went. It moves up simply b/c someone out there reviewed it and I it has been giving me the evil eye ever since it went in to the Abyss AKA TBR pile.
And if it picked up I wonder if it will be a series (I’m Gluten for punishment!)
You did a great review (I suck at them)
avid — You are welcome!
sarai — Well, I did give it a C so …
Well this book is in the TBR pile so I was happy to see someone reviewing it. I think I might have to move it up a couple. Great review!
I saw this title at the bookstore when I first saw a review of it online. I put it back because it just didn’t grab me. Thanks for the review, Sonia!