47North
Pub date: March 12th, 2013
Imagine you’re in your early 20’s, your future as an archeologist is laying at the ready at your feet. Then your mom dies. And your cousin goes missing.
And you start going through… changes… whenever you’re under stress. Furry, wolf-like changes.
This is where we meet Zoe Miller, the heroine in Seven Kinds of Hell by Dana Cameron. This is the first full-length novel in Cameron’s Fangborn series. The Fangborn are werewolves, vampires, and oracles sworn to protect the human race. These aren’t your everyday werewolves or vampires. The vampires don’t “sparkle” and the werewolves are not at the mercy of the full moon. Cameron clearly lays out the rules of this universe for readers who may not be familiar with her Fangborn short stories.
Zoe is catapulted into a game of cat and mouse after a delusional businessman, desperate to become a Fangborn himself, abducts her cousin. The kidnapper demands that Zoe collect artifacts related to Pandora’s Box in exchange for her cousin. The adventure from Boston to London to Berlin to Venice and ending in Greece feels like a modern day Indiana Jones adventure. Instead of fighting the Nazis, the heroine in this story is going up against a Russian kidnapper and a US government official with poor intentions.
Along the way Zoe learns what it means to be a Fangborn and how to live as a werewolf. She was not raised to understand what it means to be a werewolf and needs to learn how to control her wolf-self. The fact the she doesn’t understand this side of her helps the reader relate to the Fangborn. Zoe is thrown together with more experienced Fangborn and they help her explore this other side of her personality as well as help her save her cousin.
The vibrant locations are key components to the novel. Cameron makes sure that the reader feels like they are running through the city square in Berlin or through the archeological site in Ephesus. It is evident that the author did her research into the locations, hopefully by traveling across Europe and the Mediterranean, but she does not overwhelm the reader with the tiniest of details. Cameron’s restrained writing makes sure that the reader can visualize the surroundings without getting bogged down in the minute.
Cameron weaves fantasy into an exciting adventure thriller seamlessly. Seven Kinds of Hell is an outstanding introduction to the Fangborn. I look forward to reading more about Zoe and her further adventures with the Fangborn.
Kate Malmon
