Book Review: Eve by Mark Jonathan Runte
Genre(s): Urban Fantasy
Book Synopsis:
They’ve spent their lives looking over their shoulders – knowing their parents’ pasts and fearing a return to their birthplace until they lost the youngest of their sisters a year ago.
One night shatters that tentative peace and sets Phoenix on edge, distracting the city from the growing threat of a viral outbreak. While the mass shooting lingers on everyone’s mind, no one notices the rising count of animal attacks and violence. Most people anyway. Arden and his sister are all too aware of what it means, and what they carry in their blood. As if being Anglo-Russian wasn’t difficult enough, they weren’t born human…
Finding Diana and keeping their secrets may be harder than it appears in a city teetering on a knife’s edge.
Review:
Werewolves have always fascinated me, and I find it refreshing to find a modern, non-romance book featuring them (I know werewolf romances are hugely popular, but most romances in general just aren’t my cup of tea.) So when I learned that this book not only featured werewolves, but was a true urban fantasy, I was thrilled.
Even better, Eve is a story about siblings—and I love a good sibling story. The two primary characters are Selene and Arden, twin werewolves trying to look after a handful of younger siblings. Their story isn’t as straightforward as it first appears, either; they’re not only in Phoenix illegally, but they’re running from Russian agents due to some unfortunate decisions made by their now-deceased parents. But they stay in Phoenix because their youngest sister is missing, and the pack mentality demands they find her before moving on.
The Phoenix depicted in Eve is a mess. Not only are they dealing with strange “animal attacks,” but there’s an epidemic of sorts, rampant lawlessness, and most of the city’s officials and high-ranking police officers are completely corrupt. Needless to say, it makes finding a missing twelve-year-old difficult, but it’s the perfect scenario for Russian agents to track down and hunt the twins.
I liked a lot about this book, and of the author’s works that I’ve read, this one is the best written.
My one issue with Eve is the amount of POV characters featured, given that it’s on the shorter side for a novel. I believe I counted eight throughout the book. Each chapter features only one POV, and they’re labeled at the start, which helped a lot, but there were a few times I’d start a new chapter and wonder, “Who was this again?” This is really a minor thing and comes down to reader preference, but for me, there were a few too many to keep track of.
Eve has plenty of intrigue and action packed into its pages, but I think my favorite part overall was its depiction of werewolves. I’m no expert on the traditional mythology surrounding them (I’ll be the first to admit most of my werewolf “knowledge” comes from pop culture), but I found this version to be unique. It’s more than changing from human to wolf shape—and no, there is no tie to the full moon in Eve. The author has developed them into a brand new species with biological characteristics that are inherited, rather than acquired (and by that I mean a human bitten by a werewolf does not become a werewolf. Werewolves in Eve are born that way.) As a scientist, I appreciated that aspect of this book, even though it wasn’t covered in great detail.
If you’re looking for a different spin on werewolves in modern day society, check out Eve. It’s an engaging and fast-paced read.
Side Note: The author encouraged me to read the related novella, Motherland, prior to reading this book, as it gives some backstory on the characters involved. It does, but I don’t think it’s necessary to read the novella—and I liked Eve much more. (If you’re interested you can read my review of the novella here: Book Review: Motherland by Mark Jonathan Runte.)
Author website: authormarkjonathan.ca
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