I thoroughly enjoyed this collection. Sue Denver has a way of telling stories that will grab your attention and keep you reading on. She spins her tales with just enough words to let you know exactly what's going on. Her descriptions of events and places is succinct but thorough, and her main character has a no-nonsense attitude that matches. I read through this book in fairly short order, because I liked Denver's to the point writing style. I hope to read more about Sarah Flores. ( )

Newbie Werewolf by Sue Denver
First of 8 Adventures of Sara Flores

What a fun collection of stories this proved to be! I can see a wide variety of readers enjoying finding out how Sara becomes a werewolf, what she does next, and how she spends part of the first year of her life with the amazing ability to transform from human to a paranormal werewolf.

What I liked:
* Sara: middle aged, dog owner, friend of a shaman, unprepared for the changes that suddenly impact her life
* The story of how Sara became a werewolf
* What Sara decided to do with her abilities and how her values changed
* Thinking about what it would be like to be a werewolf
* The cases Sara chose to take on to aid those in need
* The writing, plots, and location
* That the stories were short and each one different
* How Sara grew and evolved as a woman and werewolf
* The inclusion of the senses used by Sara during each story
* I felt that these stories could be read by young adult and perhaps a bit younger readers – if parents vetted the book first
* The tie-in with myths, legends, and the tie-in to a fictional Plains Native American tribe
* That I cared about Sara and wanted to know what would happen next
* That Sara was not perfect but did her best
* All of it really except…

What I didn’t like:
* Who and what I was meant not to like – there were plenty of baddies to be dealt with in each story

Did I enjoy this book? Yes
Would I read more in this series? Yes

Thank you to NetGalley and Books Go Social for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars ( )

Newbie Werewolf is a collection of seven short stories and one novella and are the first adventures of new werewolf Sara Flores. The stories are presented chronologically and are episodic in nature.

Sara Flores is living alone in the mountains recovering from a bad divorce. Her only friend is an old Lupiti shaman. Before he dies, he passes his ability to shift into a wolf on to Sara. Sara is a fun and strong protagonist. She is learning her abilities as well as exploring how she wants to use them. She has some moral choices to make and that is explored very well.

There are some gaps in the narrative and some developments in Sara’s story that are left unexplained. There are a few plot points that are unconvincing. Why would Sara have a worry that she might become a werewolf and start “researching” by reading werewolf novels? How does she get her new home and acquire money and resources?
This is a fun, fast read but would improve by being fleshed out with more explanation. ( )

Not bad, but not a winner for me. It's rather contrived how she gets to be a werewolf without knowing anything about it - and some of the stuff she comes up with, from (she says) reading werewolf novels, aren't anything I've ever come across. Shift back by eating meat? Most werewolf stories I read have them hunting at some point, in wolf form without thereafter shifting. And the stuff about "bad guys don't need their money any more"...so just how does she get into their bank accounts and clean them out? No one's going to be carrying really significant cash on them - not enough for houses and trucks and guns and so on. And using their credit card or a check is a lovely way to lead authorities straight to her. She reveals herself over and over and...And so far she's gotten away with it. But that's a matter of luck, and when her luck runs out - one blabbermouth (not even on the scene, necessarily - looking through a window or something) will wreck everything for her. Or not. And if Joe had apprentices, and she's been working with the Lupiti - no one has said anything? Why, exactly? We don't get to see any real interactions with the tribal leaders, so it's hard to tell what her relationships are. I don't know. Not bad stories individually, well-written and well-edited (a couple wrong-word typos was all I noticed, whoshed instead of whooshed and scrapped instead of scraped). But the universe as presented has an awful lot of very convenient holes in it. It's a good deal better than some urban fantasy I've read recently, but not stories I want to keep following. ( )

Fun collection of short (and very short) stories and the first novella in the series. I think the Novella (Curiosity Kills) was written first, and then the stories added in as back-story afterwards, and have been collected together now in internal chronological order, which makes sense for the reader, although some details are necessarily repeated a few times (and a few are still waiting to be elucidated). The stories vary considerably in length, with some not even novella length still being broken into chapters or parts as the action dictates.

Sara had been living an enjoyably reclusive life for 10 years following an acrimonious divorce. Her only real friend was an elderly tribal man the next cabin over. It turns out that he was/had been the tribal shaman with a particularly impressive 'trick' that he didn't teach to Sara. He simply mingled his blood from a deliberate cut on his hand with hers very shortly before he died. Sara feared all sorts of things, none of which came to pass for a couple of months (full moons included) before she was forced into a desperate situation and changed against her will or knowledge into a were-wolf. This enabled her to escape unharmed but causes many other complications and she now has a very special secret to keep - nobody else believes in werewolves. (This is very poor conveyed in many of the stories with people believing her shape-change far too regularly). She's now taken on the persona of last resort troubleshooter to the tribe, and general lone ranger and do-gooder whenever the opportunity strikes - mostly she enjoys all the benefits her new powers can give her, confidence strength and Independence, but keeping her secrets becomes increasingly hard especially in the modern world - she has no inclination to become a lab-rat, and so far remains single.

Other than the acceptance issue, this is generally fun fast and well written. The bad guys have some kinds of motive - generally greed - adn Sara is inventive to look after herself. I'll probably read the rest of the novellas if they're ever released in a collection, and any full - length novels that come out. But as standalone books they're all too short. ( )