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Howling Dead
Which earrings look best with fur? Kira Walker is a geek and UNIX systems administrator who has a bad hair day at least once a month. But when a wolf attacks Kira and her BFF in downtown Denver around the full moon, she’s devastated. Now, like it or not, Kira is unemployed, and the head of Denver’s werewolf pack is getting a little too friendly for her tastes. And, oddly, she keeps finding herself naked in front of road workers. Caught in this new world, Kira discovers there are sinister forces at work. Rogue werewolves have declared war against humans, and when Kira’s other BFF is kidnapped, it gets Kira snarling mad. Can she solve the riddle of the Enchanted Forest before the rogue werewolves kill again? Fashion-challenged Kira will learn that werewolves have a strong bite.
288 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2009
1 person is currently reading
70 people want to read
About the author
M.H. Bonham
49 books61 followersM. H. Bonham is a six-time awarding winning author of seventeen books. She started her career as a rocket scientist and quickly switched to a software engineer and systems administrator, where she insisted that Y2K was just a figure concocted for how much a computer geek can make in one day after convincing the newspapers the world’s computer systems are going to crash.
Taking her money and running, Maggie learned through racing sled dogs, that dogs are a lot like computers (they don’t do anything you want unless you speak their language and can be just as stubborn). She holds the prestigious three-time Red Lantern Award at the American Dog Derby (the oldest sled dog race in North America) and was featured in the Ashton Daily News as the only musher whose ten-dog team chased a Pomeranian into the backyard of the local gossip columnist.
Despite such harrowing experiences, she has braved whiteouts in Wyoming and swamps in Minnesota (as well as the fearsome Idaho Pomeranian) and learned much about dog and wolf behavior. She’s a world-renown expert in canine behavior and training. The publishers of her books include Penguin Putnam, John Wiley and Sons, Barrons Educational Series, TFH, Sterling, Dragon Moon Press and Yard Dog Press. She’s lost count on how many articles she has published in various consumer and trade magazines and websites, but figures it’s over a hundred by now.
M. H. Bonham is the author of Prophecy of Swords and Runestone of Teiwas, both heroic fantasy books in the Swords of Destiny Series published by Yard Dog Press, which share the world with Lachlei. Her work has also appeared in the Four Bubbas of the Apocalypse, Small Bites, Houston, We’ve Got Bubbas, A Time To..., Flush Fiction anthologies, Lorelei Signal, Kidvisions and Tales of the Talisman magazine, and Amazon Shorts.
She writes science fiction, fantasy, and mystery, having taken courses appropriate to a software engineering background such as Anglo Saxon, Latin, and Beowulf. When she’s not racing her geriatric sled dogs, she’s climbing mountains, hiking, and practicing Shotokan Karate (she’s a brown belt) and Ninjitsu. She is currently working on her master’s degree in Liberal Studies. She shares her home at 4000 ft — where most people swear there isn’t any oxygen and you can’t find that altitude on the high altitude directions for cake — with four Malamutes, six Alaskan Huskies, a tortoiseshell cat, deer, elk, foxes, coyotes, mountain lions, bobcats, and bears. Her husband, Larry, indulges her lunacy.
Taking her money and running, Maggie learned through racing sled dogs, that dogs are a lot like computers (they don’t do anything you want unless you speak their language and can be just as stubborn). She holds the prestigious three-time Red Lantern Award at the American Dog Derby (the oldest sled dog race in North America) and was featured in the Ashton Daily News as the only musher whose ten-dog team chased a Pomeranian into the backyard of the local gossip columnist.
Despite such harrowing experiences, she has braved whiteouts in Wyoming and swamps in Minnesota (as well as the fearsome Idaho Pomeranian) and learned much about dog and wolf behavior. She’s a world-renown expert in canine behavior and training. The publishers of her books include Penguin Putnam, John Wiley and Sons, Barrons Educational Series, TFH, Sterling, Dragon Moon Press and Yard Dog Press. She’s lost count on how many articles she has published in various consumer and trade magazines and websites, but figures it’s over a hundred by now.
M. H. Bonham is the author of Prophecy of Swords and Runestone of Teiwas, both heroic fantasy books in the Swords of Destiny Series published by Yard Dog Press, which share the world with Lachlei. Her work has also appeared in the Four Bubbas of the Apocalypse, Small Bites, Houston, We’ve Got Bubbas, A Time To..., Flush Fiction anthologies, Lorelei Signal, Kidvisions and Tales of the Talisman magazine, and Amazon Shorts.
She writes science fiction, fantasy, and mystery, having taken courses appropriate to a software engineering background such as Anglo Saxon, Latin, and Beowulf. When she’s not racing her geriatric sled dogs, she’s climbing mountains, hiking, and practicing Shotokan Karate (she’s a brown belt) and Ninjitsu. She is currently working on her master’s degree in Liberal Studies. She shares her home at 4000 ft — where most people swear there isn’t any oxygen and you can’t find that altitude on the high altitude directions for cake — with four Malamutes, six Alaskan Huskies, a tortoiseshell cat, deer, elk, foxes, coyotes, mountain lions, bobcats, and bears. Her husband, Larry, indulges her lunacy.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 20, 2022
3.5 stars. I enjoyed the story and curious to continue on with the series, was a fun and a bit of an exciting read.
November 12, 2010
~* 3.5 Stars *~
For the first time in my long and varied reading experience, I've come across a book that has combined the somewhat inexplicable world of computer technology and the mystical world of werewolves to stunning and strong results that benefit a reader.
Kira Walker is a system administrator who does consulting work for companies, securing their networks. She and her best friend have moved from SoCal (Southern California) to Denver to work for a large company with spider (hacker) issues. Slipping out of the building late one night to grab some dinner while they run restoration discs for the system, Kira and her friend are attacked by a wolf. Her friend dies, but Kira survives, and on the next full moon, she realizes just how dramatically that attack has affected her life. She's now a lycanthrope.
Kira does everything to try to deny this change and the affect it has, while old friends come back into her life bearing cryptic messages and acting bizarrely. Meeting with the Alpha of the Denver pack, Alaric, doesn't shine any more light on her burgeoning troubles, but it does point out how gorgeous he is even as it points Kira towards the idea that her attack and subsequent change is unique in that she's the only one of several recent attack victims that have survived. Her attack has a slightly different MO than the others, but the police are still interested in her accounting of the attack, and police sergeant Jim Walking Bear takes more than just a work related interest in her.
As the tech world and rogue werewolves start to close in around her, Kira struggles to stay alive as she scrambles to find out just what is going on. She's been tossed into the deep end of a very dangerous pool and the sharks circling all turn furry at the full moon. What's a geek turned Alpha to do?
I liked Howling Dead, but I have to admit, there was a lot of technical jargon that hit hard, fast, and often through the narrative, and while I'm computer savvy, I'm sure not tech enough to grasp it all. I got a little lost more than once. The overall plot was solid, though, and I am totally impressed with the originality and sheer bravery in blending such disparate worlds into one story. My hat's off to M.H. Bonham for that.
I can't say I was totally thrilled with Kira as the lead character, though. That's not at all uncommon for me, I know I'm picky about the heroines in fantasy novels, but several times Kira came off as very unlikable, and unfortunately for me, she was written in a way that brushes up against a bugaboo of mine. I've never liked when a character in a book has become something other, is told by exceedingly reliable sources that the change is permanent, and spends the rest of the book alternately despising what they are or determined to change it regardless of what they were told...even when they're using their new skills and talents for the benefit of all concerned. That is a personal preference, not a criticism of the story, but I mention it because it did affect my enjoyment of the book. I never warmed up to Kira and in fact, spent most of the book in various stages of annoyance with her.
I was slightly disappointed by one other aspect of the book as a whole. I think Bonham did a good job laying out the plot and pacing it well and offering it up to the readers clearly (as much as could be done for my less-than-tech-genius understanding, anyway). But while I felt the "what" of the story was well defined, the "why" of it got a little neglected. By the end, I wasn't totally solid on why the werewolf rogues were doing what they were doing beyond a general distaste for monkeys and a quest for power. That quest ultimately wasn't sufficient to explain the motivations, and there seemed to be a bit of a disconnect between their actions and the scope of danger that humanity would pose for the werewolves if the humans they planned on cyber attacking through the Enchanted Forrest ever got wind of exactly what they were up against. I don't think quite enough attention or credit was given for the fact that in this country, the power is in the money, and the quickest way to get a silver bullet in the heart is to piss off security conscious conglomerates with virtually unlimited funding, so I don't think, ultimately, that the "why" of their actions matched up logically or emotionally with the "what" of them enough for me to maintain a willing suspension of disbelief in the big picture presented.
I also had a hard time connecting in any way with the relationships between Kira and Aleric and Kira and Jim. Maybe because I was so overwhelmed by the tech terms slung about with reckless abandon and no explanation for the layman that I lost the ability to feel one way or another about the triangle, though it wasn't given much room to develop, either. Jim's character and development in the story in general felt a bit odd and out of place, though, so even though I got the impression that the human side of Kira wanted Jim and the Alpha in her wanted Aleric, there was very little offered to allow me to form an emotional opinion of Jim in particular and the romantic triangle in general one way or the other.
I'm certainly not sorry I read Howling Dead, and I'd be interested in a sequel, as there's enough offered to lay the groundwork, but I do wish it had spent a little less time on the tech side and more time on the character and relationship development of the characters, and the reason that they all acted and felt the way they did.
~*~*~*~
Reviewed for One Good Book Deserves Another.
For the first time in my long and varied reading experience, I've come across a book that has combined the somewhat inexplicable world of computer technology and the mystical world of werewolves to stunning and strong results that benefit a reader.
Kira Walker is a system administrator who does consulting work for companies, securing their networks. She and her best friend have moved from SoCal (Southern California) to Denver to work for a large company with spider (hacker) issues. Slipping out of the building late one night to grab some dinner while they run restoration discs for the system, Kira and her friend are attacked by a wolf. Her friend dies, but Kira survives, and on the next full moon, she realizes just how dramatically that attack has affected her life. She's now a lycanthrope.
Kira does everything to try to deny this change and the affect it has, while old friends come back into her life bearing cryptic messages and acting bizarrely. Meeting with the Alpha of the Denver pack, Alaric, doesn't shine any more light on her burgeoning troubles, but it does point out how gorgeous he is even as it points Kira towards the idea that her attack and subsequent change is unique in that she's the only one of several recent attack victims that have survived. Her attack has a slightly different MO than the others, but the police are still interested in her accounting of the attack, and police sergeant Jim Walking Bear takes more than just a work related interest in her.
As the tech world and rogue werewolves start to close in around her, Kira struggles to stay alive as she scrambles to find out just what is going on. She's been tossed into the deep end of a very dangerous pool and the sharks circling all turn furry at the full moon. What's a geek turned Alpha to do?
I liked Howling Dead, but I have to admit, there was a lot of technical jargon that hit hard, fast, and often through the narrative, and while I'm computer savvy, I'm sure not tech enough to grasp it all. I got a little lost more than once. The overall plot was solid, though, and I am totally impressed with the originality and sheer bravery in blending such disparate worlds into one story. My hat's off to M.H. Bonham for that.
I can't say I was totally thrilled with Kira as the lead character, though. That's not at all uncommon for me, I know I'm picky about the heroines in fantasy novels, but several times Kira came off as very unlikable, and unfortunately for me, she was written in a way that brushes up against a bugaboo of mine. I've never liked when a character in a book has become something other, is told by exceedingly reliable sources that the change is permanent, and spends the rest of the book alternately despising what they are or determined to change it regardless of what they were told...even when they're using their new skills and talents for the benefit of all concerned. That is a personal preference, not a criticism of the story, but I mention it because it did affect my enjoyment of the book. I never warmed up to Kira and in fact, spent most of the book in various stages of annoyance with her.
I was slightly disappointed by one other aspect of the book as a whole. I think Bonham did a good job laying out the plot and pacing it well and offering it up to the readers clearly (as much as could be done for my less-than-tech-genius understanding, anyway). But while I felt the "what" of the story was well defined, the "why" of it got a little neglected. By the end, I wasn't totally solid on why the werewolf rogues were doing what they were doing beyond a general distaste for monkeys and a quest for power. That quest ultimately wasn't sufficient to explain the motivations, and there seemed to be a bit of a disconnect between their actions and the scope of danger that humanity would pose for the werewolves if the humans they planned on cyber attacking through the Enchanted Forrest ever got wind of exactly what they were up against. I don't think quite enough attention or credit was given for the fact that in this country, the power is in the money, and the quickest way to get a silver bullet in the heart is to piss off security conscious conglomerates with virtually unlimited funding, so I don't think, ultimately, that the "why" of their actions matched up logically or emotionally with the "what" of them enough for me to maintain a willing suspension of disbelief in the big picture presented.
I also had a hard time connecting in any way with the relationships between Kira and Aleric and Kira and Jim. Maybe because I was so overwhelmed by the tech terms slung about with reckless abandon and no explanation for the layman that I lost the ability to feel one way or another about the triangle, though it wasn't given much room to develop, either. Jim's character and development in the story in general felt a bit odd and out of place, though, so even though I got the impression that the human side of Kira wanted Jim and the Alpha in her wanted Aleric, there was very little offered to allow me to form an emotional opinion of Jim in particular and the romantic triangle in general one way or the other.
I'm certainly not sorry I read Howling Dead, and I'd be interested in a sequel, as there's enough offered to lay the groundwork, but I do wish it had spent a little less time on the tech side and more time on the character and relationship development of the characters, and the reason that they all acted and felt the way they did.
~*~*~*~
Reviewed for One Good Book Deserves Another.
November 15, 2010
I love all types of Urban Fantasy and have read over 250 books in the past 3 years. This definitely isn't the worst book I've read, but it isn't my favorite either.
The story line defiantly had an original slant. A lot of heroines in Urban Fantasy novels are P.I.'s, detectives, or in some profession that allows them to kick butt. A system admin is a new slant. As a system admin I liked the idea and was really excited to read Howling Dead.
I'm a Microsoft Certified System Admin. I'm not a Unix admin and wide area networking/security (routers, etc)isn't something a Windows Server admin deals with too much. I have been doing server support for 13 years and even I found some of the technical jargon in this book confusing. I also found some of it inaccurate. I mean come on... "deadb0b" is NOT a secure password. Even my 65 year old mother who can't open Windows Explorer understands about the need for secure passwords when doing online banking.
I've never been into hacking, but any system administrator understands how a brute force password cracker works. The first thing it goes through is dictionary words and numbers used in place of letters (like Zero instead of the letter O or 1 for I). Kira was supposed to have graduated from MIT?!?! With the amount of research the author did in order to include the technical details, a mistake like this is something that shouldn't have been made.
I understand the need to make Kira seem real... that she is a true techie and that her education at MIT would expose her to people who work with on the "bleeding edge" of technology (techie term for technology that is so new it's revolutionary but not always stable). I also think that Bonham could have accomplished this without the constant technical jargon. The other reviewers that did not like the book because they found the amount of technical jargon confusing is completely on target.
I am giving Howling Dead 3 stars because I did enjoy the book, but felt the author could have accomplished her goal without including so much technical jargon.
If the author writes a sequel, I hope she'll remember that she is writing for Urban Fantasy readers, not system admins. I think that would make the book more enjoyable for every one. Those of us who are system admins and read Urban Fantasy do so to escape from work related topics.
The story line defiantly had an original slant. A lot of heroines in Urban Fantasy novels are P.I.'s, detectives, or in some profession that allows them to kick butt. A system admin is a new slant. As a system admin I liked the idea and was really excited to read Howling Dead.
I'm a Microsoft Certified System Admin. I'm not a Unix admin and wide area networking/security (routers, etc)isn't something a Windows Server admin deals with too much. I have been doing server support for 13 years and even I found some of the technical jargon in this book confusing. I also found some of it inaccurate. I mean come on... "deadb0b" is NOT a secure password. Even my 65 year old mother who can't open Windows Explorer understands about the need for secure passwords when doing online banking.
I've never been into hacking, but any system administrator understands how a brute force password cracker works. The first thing it goes through is dictionary words and numbers used in place of letters (like Zero instead of the letter O or 1 for I). Kira was supposed to have graduated from MIT?!?! With the amount of research the author did in order to include the technical details, a mistake like this is something that shouldn't have been made.
I understand the need to make Kira seem real... that she is a true techie and that her education at MIT would expose her to people who work with on the "bleeding edge" of technology (techie term for technology that is so new it's revolutionary but not always stable). I also think that Bonham could have accomplished this without the constant technical jargon. The other reviewers that did not like the book because they found the amount of technical jargon confusing is completely on target.
I am giving Howling Dead 3 stars because I did enjoy the book, but felt the author could have accomplished her goal without including so much technical jargon.
If the author writes a sequel, I hope she'll remember that she is writing for Urban Fantasy readers, not system admins. I think that would make the book more enjoyable for every one. Those of us who are system admins and read Urban Fantasy do so to escape from work related topics.
July 9, 2011
I really enjoyed this book, but I am a big fan of werewolves. According to the author there may be a sequel at some point in the future. Given the many different genre/topics she writes on she creates a great heroine with a strong story line to support her. I plan to read other fantasy and paranormal works Ms. Bonham has written with the hope of getting the same enjoyment from them.
October 19, 2010
Don't know if I can finish this. As much as I enjoy the Denver references, the story is truly annoying me. The characters and storyline are too predictable, and quite frankly I don't care at all what might happen to them.
Read
July 4, 2010good book i enjoyed it but some of the technological lingo was lost on me and i just had to read around it
November 26, 2010
This book was ok, but it would have been better without the jargan. Over half of the computer jargan I had no idea what it was.
Want to read
April 1, 2011The cover is scary O.O
July 14, 2013
I really liked it but it reads as if it is the beginning of a series...
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews