Chimera (Weregirl Trilogy, Book #2)
By C.D. Bell
YA, Fantasy
The forest if full of secrets. Nessa Kurland is adjusting to life as a weregirl–she is transforming with ease and running with a pack she cares for deeply. Her boyfriend Luc is a fellow shifter, and Paravida, the corporation responsible for unethical genetic experiments on the residents of Tether, has pulled out of town, leaving the community safe. But that’s just how it appears on the surface. Nessa returns home from a run with the pack to find an FBI raid and the shocking news that her mother Vivian is being held without bail for violations so serious she may be facing life in prison. What did Nessa’s mother, a small-town vet tech, do to threaten Homeland Security? Vivian’s secret past leads Nessa to discover there is more to her own story than she ever imagined. The wolves that are running through Tether’s woods are not the same pack Nessa knew before. These are not all natural wolves. And they are breeding. Nessa’s transformation is only just beginning.
oOo
I was really excited to get into the book after reading Weregirl. Chimera is still a good read, but it feels like one too many things are trying to be set up in this book for the third book and it made everything feel cramped. I think what the author was going for was a breathless pace trying to keep up the tension but with all the information on each page it felt more claustrophobic than anything. The writing is still done well, I think if more had been set up in the first book this would have been an excellent follow-up.
Some new characters are introduced in this book, Aunt Jane, who becomes the guardian for the kids when Vivian is led away in handcuffs. She’s not as fleshed out as the other characters in the book, like the—now absent—Magical Native American character, she seems to exist only to convey information.
Daniel Host is another new character that I think should’ve been alluded to in Weregirl since he plays such a pivotal role in this book. His story arc is big and complicated and could be its own trilogy. And there’s just so much going on that there’s a big thing that happens while Nessa is at Daniel’s house and it gets buried under everything else that happens.
This book didn’t hold up as well as Weregirl. There’s just…too much happening. The writing is still good, but this book should’ve been two or one of the subplots should’ve been cut. The story has no room to breathe. So we’ll see how the third books does.
You can find Chimera at:
Forever Fiction Books 