Walking Wolf Road by Brandon Herbert

I had the pleasure of reading Brandon Herbert's Walking Wolf Road this week. There are several things that struck me as I read, and the first was Herbert's ability to create a strong, compelling teen boy voice in his hero, Jimmy Walker.  Through this character, Herbert explored the realm of family relationships, high  school drama, and the paranormal world of Native American shapeshifters. These  are heavy, complex issues that Herbert dealt with satisfactorily and sometimes  with surprisely unexpected twists. **No Spoilers** here!!!!

Jimmy Walker  is being raised by his mother and stepfather, who seems at times overly critical  and demanding of Jimmy. This perceived rejection by his stepfather is part of  the fuel that feeds the fire with Jimmy, the dark fire that consumes, which  Jimmy calls his "dragon." To make matters worse, Jimmy's stepfather moves the  family around quite a bit. Jimmy has just landed, in chapter 1 in a new town at  the beginning of his senior year in high school. He hates the fake high school  culture that drives most of the drama and
encourages a group of jocks to be  bullies. Herbert's hero is the unlikely type: over-weight, depressed and totally  unaware of his talents, or dormant courage. The story unfolds and we get the  pleasure of watching Jimmy discover new aspects of himelf develop with a new  found group of friends, The Pack.

The premise: loner boy, Jimmy Walker,  meets strange new friends, Fen, Loki, and Geri, and finds a place he belongs.  They are werewolves who bring Jimmy into the Pack. When a dead boy speaks to  Jimmy and a dark shadow haunts his dreams, he is propelled on a mission of self  discovery as well as a mission of truth. With his Pack mates at his back, he  begins the journey. But life is rarely what you expect and loss changes  everything.

Jimmy's best friend is the beautiful, but creepy Fen, who  opens Jimmy's eyes to the world of the paranormal and WOLVES, or werewolves that  is! In the "Pack" is a dark-haired beauty named Loki and the quiet Geri. They  play like wolves, order their relationships like wolves and explore the world  like wolves. The relationship between Jimmy, new Pack pup, and Fen, the Alpha  dog, is perhaps where Herbert does some of his best teen relationship  exploration and it has intense momemts...you'll have to read to find out what  happens and why. The romantic triangulations will make your eyebrows  raise...

I appreciated his take on the "werewolf" concept. Herbert  incorporated just enough Native
American culture as to create a believable  "otherworld" complete with rules of engagement and mystical characters. His  descriptions were vivid and beautiful. As the hero, Jimmy, explores his  connection to his personal, inner wolf, he discovers that much of what he  thought was true about life, his family and his friends was actually  ...different, not wrong, but different. Herbert takes on the teen world with  great confidence. He creates a world where werewolves live among humans. A world  where you never know if someone is a wolf in sheep's clothing or a Wolf in a  man's body. I loved it. This is a great, fast-paced read you can really sink  your teeth into, no pun intended:)