Amarok
Publication: 20th November 2012
Publisher: Spencer Hill Press
Pages: 181
Genre: Fantasy/Paranormal
Age Appropriate: Young Adult
Life has been hell for seventeen-year-old Emma since she moved from sunny California to a remote Alaskan town. Rejected by her father and living with the guilt of causing her mother's death, she makes a desperate dash for freedom from her abusive stepfather. But when her car skids off the icy road, her escape only leads to further captivity in a world beyond her imagining. Dragged across the tundra by a crazed mountain man and his enormous black wolf, she finds that her gentle touch and kind heart earn her the wolf's friendship, and she names him Amarok, not knowing he was once a young man. When a vicious madman--trapped in bear form by an ancient Shaman--attacks the travelers and injures Amarok, Emma must find the strength to confront her fears and free the wolf she's come to love. But there's a catch--she must face down the evil shaman, a powerful Siberian mammoth hunter from the ice age, and he has no intention of giving up his power to her.
My Thoughts...
I really wanted to like this book more than I actually did, that's not to say it's bad but quite often I'd be reading it and my mind would go a-wandering onto something totally unrelated to the story, I found the constant walking throughout the book to be tedious, a little less of that and a bit more action and I definitely would have liked it a lot better.
Emma flees the home that she shares with her abusive stepfather into a snowy, dark night, trying to avoid hitting an animal on the road she swerves and ends up crashing her car, she is found by a man and a wolf, the man Weasel Tail is crazy and evil, she's not the first female he's dragged to his cabin to torture and abuse, the wolf whom Emma comes to call Amarok is a seventeen year old boy turned into a wolf centuries ago by an evil shaman, and unwillingly tethered to Weasel Tail and his previous descendants, he is also a victim of abuse from Weasel Tail and his previous owners.
Amarok can be changed back, Weasel Tail keeps a totem around his neck to keep Amarok in line but there is an identical totem which when put together will turn Amarok back into the boy he used to be, the only problem is that the shaman who first cursed Amarok has the second totem but getting it from him will be the problem.
The ending of this book left an opening for another book, I'd be interested to see what would occur in another book.
I give this 3/5.
A Big Thanks To Spencer Hill Press.
