Mortification Scale: 4 Tomato Faces
- 1 for SciFi/Fantasy
- 2nd for being yet another human-animal psychic bond book (think Mercedes Lackey, Jane Lindskold, etc.)
- 3rd for being gay porn
- 4th for being gay porn!!!!! Do NOT read this in public!!!
- Very well-written
- Excellent take on Norse culture (think Mickey Zucker Reichart)
- Doesn't seem like it can be the first book in a series
Synopsis:
Njall defies his father, the Jarl, in order not to bring dishonor down on their family by failing to respond to the call for young men to join the Wolfheall. Rather than continue on as the heir to his steading, Njall goes to the Wolfheall as a prospective brother to a newborn trellwolf. These trellwolves are pony-sized wolves with psychic powers that pick amongst the available boys around age 16 for a brother. It doesn't matter if the wolf is male or female, they pick a teenage boy to bond with. These boys/men are rejected by mainstream society due to the homosexual perversions that they practice. When I first read this, I was thinking that the authors were alluding to the Knights Templar and the unsubstantiated rumors surrounding them. I was waiting to find out that while some men might be lovers, the whole perversion thing was just a fear-based rumor. Nope. Definitely not just a rumor.
Njall, who is renamed Isolfr (they all take new names that have the root "olf" somewhere in there), has bonded to a konigenwolf, a dominant bitch. This means that Isolfr gets to be gang raped by the men who are bonded to the wolves that mate with Isolfr's wolf each time she's in season. Despite being told that "she's worth it", I can't say that I agreed after reading some very very disturbing scenes involving copious amounts of salve, multiple positions, and some intense emotion. Yes, I said scenes, plural. The two female authors really seemed to enjoy the gay sex scenes. I'm not sure why that is, and would prefer not to speculate. There was a "teaching" scene between Njall and a 40 year old man; an allusion to circle-jerks among the tithe-boys; a second heat mating scene with a good friend; a gang-bang scene with 6-8 participants, watched by about 30 other people. Then there was the "choosing a wolf-jarl" three-way. This would be quite educational for any teenager wanting to explore alternate sexuality. I'm not sure if that's evident from the cover art and the back cover, which makes this book sound like what it is...a coming of age story. It's just that the coming of age is more a triple x rated cumming of age. Sorry, I couldn't resist. :)
Overall, this was an excellent book. The story was engaging. The moral themes were good. The heroes were heroic and the villains villainous with just enough humanizing of both to keep it interesting. There was multilevel conflict to overcome and overall, the story was a story, not just something to fill the time between the sex scenes. Very odd. It's more like a book for teenagers mixed with gay porn. I wouldn't know where to shelve this one at a library.
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