Blake is an accountant by day and a confused, newly formed werewolf by, well by every waking hour, actually. After waking up lost, naked, and doused in blood, he manages to make his way home only to realize that without keys he is locked out and in fairly desperate straits! Enter Ted, the hottie two floors down. And if the erection in Blake’s pants is any indication, Ted is quite the appealing guy.
I have to stop here and just admit off the bat that I LOVED this guy! Both of them actually. But the way in which Rob Rosen chose to write the character of Ted–his easygoing nature, his blithe acceptance, his falling head over heels in love with Blake despite the fact that he admits to being a werewolf; well, in less adept hands this character would have been a disaster–but no–this guy was gold, solid gold!
This story had many–many secondary characters who were just as fully and richly drawn as the two main men So come along with me while I give you a rough overview of how they all intermingled in this stunningly well-crafted story, Queerwolf by Rob Rosen.
Blake has a boyfriend–Ted. Ted helps Blake discover that the wealthy son of the local sheriff, Steven Littleton, was inadvertently responsible for the arousal (pun intended–read the book, you’ll get the joke) of a latent gene that Blake carries which turned him into a werewolf. Not just any werewolf, mind you, but one that was able to shift without the aid of the full moon.
Steven was an alpha in his own right and leader of a large pack in San Francisco, and the pack does not like Blake–in fact they want to kill him. So after taking a road trip, Ted and Blake have a family meeting with Blake’s parents and find out that the gene he has often skips generations and that there may very well be others with the same genetic anomaly.
Ted and Blake along with Blake’s Grandpa (Gramps) who is on parole for–well just about every crime imaginable under the header for grand larceny–set off on an adventure to find these other “queerwolves” before the next full moon when Steven’s pack has threatened to hunt Blake down and eat him as an appetizer at their next dinner party. Along for the ride is a tough bodyguard rolled into a tiny, cute little package that goes by the name of Mitzy. One thing leads to another and they begin to find various other pack members that all have their own brand of unique quirkiness.
I know what you are thinking–wow–lots of characters, really involved plot-line, maybe easy to get lost in such a huge cast. Stop right there–here is the beauty of the twisted, yet scathingly brilliant mind of Rob Rosen–you never get lost, honest. He unpacks each character and adds their thread to this beautifully quilted story one stitch at a time. From our meeting with Joseph, who is being kept drugged by his mother so that her pack does not realize he is carrying the gene, to the cross dressing Mack, a Barbra Streisand impersonator who will do anything for the $20,000 dollars he needs to get a pair of boobs,to poor Ralph who changed and never was able to change back and therefore remains locked in wolf form, this group has you laughing, sighing and shaking your head at their crazy antics!
I could go on and on. You have to read this book. It is by far the funniest, best crafted novel I’ve read in a long time! It marches on without a pause, and sweeps you along in its action packed wake, leaving you gasping for breath and wiping the tears from your eyes from laughter! Then near the end, Mr, Rosen drops this little gem in your lap and you pause–realizing that you just read something rather profound.
“Anyway, just be who you are and the others will eventually fall in line. If you live your life in fear of change, then the fear will kill you long before that change eventually does.”
And there it was, the meaning behind the funny one-liners and non-stop giggles: be yourself, don’t live in fear, just live…before it’s too late.
I highly recommend Queerwolf by Rob Rosen to you. It IS a 5 star read!