Nightshade

Series: Nightshade (#1)
Genre: Romance/Adventure
Author: Andrea Cremer
Publisher: Penguin Group USA


Nightshade has been promoted relentlessly over the past few months. It's gone as far as the publisher mailing (vandalized) old books to prominent book bloggers and a series of v-blogs from main love interest Shay Doran. (Okay, a young actor playing Shay Doran, but you get the idea.) Hype on that level is a dangerous game- more promotion is generally better, but too much makes readers wary. Fortunately, the blogosphere seems to have decided that Nightshade lives up to the hype, and I agree. Albeit with some reservations.

Nightshade takes place in the area of a wooded mountain protected by two wizards called Keepers- Emile Nightshade and Efrom Bane. Each Keeper has a pack of Guardians to protect and serve them. Our heroine is Calla Tor, the daughter of the Nightshade alpha. Calla leads a sub-pack of five teenage werewolves within the Nightshade clan. She's also been set up in an arranged marriage to Ren, who serves a similar role in the Bane pack. Said marriage is supposed to inaugurate a new pack, made of the young werewolves from both and headed by Efrom Bane's son Logan. Calla seems to be pretty much okay with this, since she's loyal to the Keepers and Ren is a frakkin' sexpot, but as the marriage approaches she realizes that she's about to cease being the respected alpha of the young Nightshades and become Ren's loyal little wifey. So, there are doubts.  The shit really hits the fan in the novel's opening scene, where she rescues a young human boy named Shay Doran from a bear. In the process she's forced to expose herself as a werewolf and heal his wounds using a forbidden technique. Well, it turns out Shay is the new student in her school. And the nephew of a very respected Keeper. And now Calla's falling for him, with her marriage to Ren less than a month away. So begins the story of Calla Tor, Rebellious Werewolf Princess.

There are some pretty big issues here. Don't get me wrong, the book is excellently written. Calla is a compelling protagonist. She's a strong-willed woman in a society which doesn't allow her that kind of independence. She's perfectly aware of the irony that she's both the leader of the pack and the one who has the least freedom. Her little brother, her gay friend, her beta-wolf Bryn- they're all following their own hearts in search of love. She's stuck with a man that the Keepers chose for her, for reasons that are their own. She wants to buck the system, but she really does feel something for Ren, and rebellion means not only becoming a fugitive, but abandoning her friends and family. She agonizes quite a bit over these issues, but for the most part her angst is believable rather than whiney. Cremer keeps the narrative lean and mean- every scene advances the plot in some way, and while problems crop up the book is never tedious. The pages keep turning rapidly- 450 pages goes marvelously fast when the writing is this good.

But though undeniably talented, Andrea Cremer is a debut author, and her inexperience shows. There are some odd storytelling glitches on display here, indicating that she doesn't have a great sense of what's obvious to the audience. In one scene Logan orders one of Calla's packmates around, and she starts reacting in a paranoid manner. The cause of this is not immediately apparent, but the author seems to think it is, which leads to some confusion. In another Shay and Calla go from an argument to bursting into laughter for reasons that, again, are played as obvious but aren't. The worst glitch is when Calla is injured and a desperate and highly dangerous gamble is necessary to save her. This is a pivotal scene in the book, and a crucial point in Calla and Shay's relationship. And it falls completely flat because Calla's response to a potentially-fatal injury is Dull Surprise, sucking all the suspense and drama out of it.

Another problem is that the sheer epicness of the story could use to be toned down. It's not enough to just be about a pair of werewolf packs, they have to be servants of fantastically powerful mages trying to protect cosmic keystones that could supposedly set off the end of the world. It's not enough to just show a young woman struggling for personal independence, she has to live in a highly repressive society where every authority figure we meet is borderline abusive. It's not enough for Calla to just be attracted to two men, she has to spend a chunk of the book's middle making out with one or the other once a chapter, like some kind of PG-rated Anita Blake. It's all kind of distracting, bordering on camp in places.

Cremer also seems to have a knack for biting off more than she can chew. Brief dramatis personae: We've got Calla, Calla's pack- the little brother, the BFF, the gay guy, and the other girl that I can't be bothered to remember anything about right now. There's Ren, and he has his pack- the brute, the slutty girl, the shrinking violet, and the other gay guy. Then there's Shay and his mysterious uncle, Keepers Emile and Efrom, Keeper-in-training Logan, the school nurse, Ren's dad, Calla's mom (who is shipping Calla/Ren in a very creepy manner), and the Searchers- enemies who are after the Guardians and Keepers, and have taken a special interest in Shay.

Deep ambivalence here. On one hand, every one of these characters is well-developed. They all have unique and realistic personalities, and play out their little dramas and romantic subplots in the background. And these subplots are well-written and generally entertaining. On the other hand, background is pretty much all they are. The Shay-Calla-Ren love triangle and associated issues take up most of the book. The other characters are only occasionally felt in the main story, and their subplots often seem like filler.

And then there's Ren. Oh boy, Ren...

The shipping wars have already begun, and from what little information I care to gather Team Ren has a significant advantage of numbers. To which I must respond: are you people on crack, or was I reading an entirely different book? Ren is not only a serial philanderer, he is possessive, controlling, probably a misogynist, and is stated by the author to have a problem controlling his temper. These are all the ingredients of an abusive boyfriend. And even if you're somehow able to overlook this, how do you manage to skip over the part where wolf-form Ren grabs Calla's throat in his jaws tight enough to choke her? Or the earlier scene where he's building up to raping her in the school bathroom before being interrupted? This is not the stuff that true love is made of, people.

Believe it or not, I don't object to this. I object to readers who see him as in any way swoon-worthy, but he serves the purposes of the story magnificently. Like the best love stories, the romantic entanglements in Nightshade serve to motivate and propel a deeper conflict. Ren is an avatar of the oppressive society Calla is stuck in. He's absorbed the misogyny and chauvinism from his father and Efrom, leading him to embrace the fact that he can selfishly screw any woman he wants while Calla has to keep herself virginal until their wedding night. If the guardians are slaves- an idea which Shay brings up, and the story supports- then Ren is the slave who's bought into the system. Granted authority by the Keepers, he uses it to perpetuate their abuses.

We're supposed to believe that Ren is a good guy deep down and has been tainted by a bad upbringing. And yeah, I'll buy that explanation. But it doesn't change the fact that he's supporting the principles of a social order that is rotten to the core, and his relationship with Calla is in no way healthy for her. Make no mistake, people, a tragic monster is still a monster. Frankenstein's homonculus was abandoned by his father and left adrift in a world that thought him a horrific abomination, so we pity him. But he still killed four innocent people in a ghastly quest for revenge. It Cremer intended Ren to be sympathetic, she screwed up. He's so entwined with the corrupt society that serves as Nightshade's main villain that it doesn't work. I grant that he has the potential for redemption. Near the end, he's hit by an earth-shattering revelation which provides an opportunity for a lot of character development in the sequels. Until he makes good on some of that, though, he's getting no respect from me.

Shay, meanwhile, is Ren's direct opposite. Ren either doesn't see the injustices of the system, or exploits them to his own benefit. Shay sees them and is appalled. He routinely rants to Calla about how the Guardian society is repressive and unjust, and how Calla deserves her own independence. Calla's attraction to him is not just physical, or even emotional- he represents liberation and the freedom to control her own destiny.  It's probably worth noting that Shay never pushes Calla into anything, even if it would be good for her. Rather, he persuades- he does the research, presents the evidence, makes his arguments, and trusts in Calla to see the truth. Cremer's essentially given him the qualities of the Good Guy and the Bad Boy at the same time, and made it work. A rather impressive trick.

I considered bringing out the Antique Scales of Judgment for this one, but I don't think that's necessary. Nightshade earns itself a solid thumbs-up. It has some problems, but the depth of the story, the strong writing, and the vivid characters allow the book to transcend these difficulties. I'm a little disappointed because just one more revision might have made this a must-read. But as is, Nightshade is still time well spent, and this series has a lot of potential.