Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

This review refers to an Advanced Reading Copy. Nightshade will be available for purchase October 2010.

Ratings Explanation

Language: Almost every swear word was used in this book, multiple times.  Hell, damn and ass were  used in many various ways and phrases.  Crude language such as “piss me off”, whore and “sucks” were used.  Expressions of deity were frequent.  Someone makes an obscene gesture.

Violence: A bear attacks a boy.  He is left bleeding and almost dead.  The boy drinks the wolf girl’s blood.  Shay and Calla are attacked by two men.  Calla kills one and leaves the other injured.  There are references to the torture of prisoners.  Calla is hurt and drinks pack blood to heal herself.  There is a fight in the bar and a table is thrown on its side, glass breaking.  Shay and Calla are attacked by a giant spider.  Calla tears its legs off and Shay hits it with ice axes.  Calla is bit and the venom starts eating her body away.  Calla bites Shay to turn him to wolf and then drinks his blood to save herself.  Calla and Shay hunt animals to eat.  The wolf pack hunts together and kills a deer.  It is described in detail.  Shay is tied up and blindfolded.  Calla and Shay fight a succubus and kill it.  They are attacked by incubus, chimera and succubi.  Searchers burst into room breaking glass which cuts Calla and Shay’s skin.  Wraiths attack.  Searchers plunge syringe into Shay’s neck.  Calla is hit with a crossbow arrow.

Sexual Content:   Close contact, kissing and touching are frequent.  “His fingers kneaded my hips”, “exploring the curve of my thigh”.  There is kissing and “wanting more”.  His hands go beneath her dress, her shirt is open, his hands move up her thighs.  Ren wants more sexually from Calla but Calla wants to wait for the union.  Calla strips off her shirt and bra, the corset makes bursting cleavage.  There is flirting and kissing.  One of the wolves is gay and the other wolves take sides for and against.  Sexual favors are demanded from those higher in ranks.  One girl gives them to save another girl from having to.  Kissing and touching on the bed, unbuttoning dress.  Calla describes “warm” feelings in her abdomen.  Several references are made to “boobs”.

Adult Themes: There is under-age drinking and smoking, as well as adult drinking and smoking.  One girl is given a drug in her drink that makes her act sexually aggressive.  Men in higher ranks demand sexual favors from those below them, male and female.  Same sex relationships are discussed.  Human sacrifices are performed at certain times of the year.

Synopsis

Calla is the leader of her pack of shape shifting wolves called Nightshades.  Their job is that of Guardians.  Calla awaits the night of her union to the other pack’s leader, Ren, which will unite the two packs as one.  The Guardians are in charge of protecting the sacred land for the Keepers.  This is what they were born to do.  In return, the Keepers provide them with everything they want and need.  One day as Calla is patrolling the sacred lands, she finds a boy, Shay, being attacked by a bear.  For some reason she is drawn to him and decides to save him.  Calla next sees Shay at school and from there a friendship begins.  Calla is ordered by the Keepers to protect Shay, but she doesn’t know why.  This gives Calla the opportunity to spend time with Shay without retribution from her pack or the Keepers because the wolves do not mix with humans, and Shay is human.  Shay begins to dig deeper into the rules and reasons for Calla’s world, pulling Calla into the mysteries.  The answers they find become more and more disturbing and a matter of life and death.

I was literally drawn into this book from the very first page.  The story moves quickly and I was caught up in it.  There were many similarities for me to the Twilight books.  I felt connected to the characters, liking and disliking them, wishing good things for them.  I was intrigued by the moon phases and the symbols at the beginning of each chapter.  I knew they had something to do with the story but I didn’t know what.  It took awhile to find out the meaning behind the symbols, but I still want to know why one or another appears randomly and what it has to do with the events in each chapter.  This is a thick book, which I always love when the story is good.  Having said all that, I was so disappointed in the level of sexual content and language in this book.  So much of it was just unnecessary.  If you have a great story, it will still be a great story without all the language and sexual content.  This book leaves you hanging in the end with no resolution, only a hope for the next book to come.  I would recommend this as an adult book, not a children’s book.  I would keep the reader level above high school level.