The Werewolf in Red

Title: The Werewolf in Red
Author: Mimi Riser
Cover Artist: Trace Edward Zaber
Publisher: Amber Allure
Buy Link: Buy Link The Werewolf In Red
Genre: M/M Paranormal
Length: Novella (30k words)
Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

A Guest Review by Cole

Review Summary: This third installment of the hilarious Sylver and Steele stories is not only the longest, but is also the best one yet.

BLURB

Buckle up your seatbelts! Mismatched lovers Sylver Starr and Hunter Steele are back in a brand new adventure, and it’s going to be a very bumpy ride…

For starters, Sylver suspects Hunter is cheating on him. Again. Hunter, you see, is a cat-shifter, and we all know how tomcats are, right? They’re not famous for fidelity. Sylver, on the other hand, is a werewolf, faithful to the core. Wolves mate for life, for better or worse. Still, if it ends up the latter, and the worse gets bad enough… Well, hell, he’s a man, too, isn’t he? If Hunter’s doing him wrong, could anyone really blame Sylver for seeking a little extracurricular comfort? Especially since he knows just where to look for it.

Sylver’s not your average werewolf, after all. When he’s not wearing fur, you can usually find him in a dress. He used to be a professional drag queen, the star attraction of Philadelphia’s Red Banana Revue. Since marrying Hunter, however, Sylver has been a secret agent for Earth Guardians, Inc., Hunter being the founder and chief of that covert corps. But Sylver doesn’t much like playing secret agent. The hours suck, and people are always trying to kill him. It’s an excessively nerve-wracking gig. Given the choice, he’d much rather return to his first love—The Stage.

That’s how Sylver ends up in the “City of Brotherly Love”—without Hunter—for a night of gaudy décor and bawdy entertainment at Philly’s très gay answer to the Moulin Rouge. Maybe he’ll find solace by joining in the club’s grand finale cancan. If Hunter doesn’t find him first.

Meanwhile, there’s a megalomaniac vampire plotting to take over the world, a crazy countess with her own hidden agenda, a Plain Jane Cinderella who needs a fairy godmother (or four), and a basset hound-shifter butler who’s just met his predestined life-mate, but isn’t happy about it. Somehow, Sylver and Hunter must sort out their own problems while helping their friends—and saving the world, of course.

Did you ever have one of those nights?…

REVIEW

The Werewolf in Red is the third installment in the Sylver and Steele stories by Mimi Riser, about a cross-dressing werewolf named Sylver and his mate Hunter Steele, a werecat who is a world-famous philanthropist by day and the leader of Earth Guardians, Inc., a secret organization of agents charged with protecting the planet, by night. The first story, Your Cheatin’ Heart (reviewed by Wave here), introduced the ill-matched couple and the comedy of errors that befall them after Sylver decides he has had enough of Hunter’s “tomcatting around” (no matter how programmed it is into his cat DNA) and leaves him. Later the two are reunited in their need to save Sylver’s small, Texas hometown from the dim-witted alien race of Crocodoids. The second installment, Thunderball (also reviewed by Wave here), tells the story of Sylver and Hunter’s undercover coup of a dog fighting ring after Hunter makes a real effort to supress his innate desire to sleep with as many partners as a cat can, thus saving their fledgling marriage. This third installment takes what was best about the first two stories — the humor in the interaction between the two Alphas and their love/hate relationship (or, I should say, their fight/sex relationship!) — and weaves a much larger plot into the story.

In The Werewolf in Red, it is the five year anniversary to the night that Sylver and Hunter met at one of Sylver’s cancan performances at the Red Banana Revue in Philadelphia and Sylver wants both of them to take a trip to Philly to celebrate at the club. Yet, Hunter hasn’t told Sylver about the financial trouble he has fallen into as he secretly battles the ancient vampire Vlad for the world’s oil shares (which is the beginning of Vlad’s plan to take over Earth), after risking his fortune and losing it. Now, Hunter is broke, the company is falling into ruin, and he has been acting distant towards Sylver for weeks. Sylver can only imagine one reason for his despondancy and lack of interest — Hunter must be cheating on him again. In a sudden burst of temper (of which they both have many), Sylver leaves to visit Philly on his own deciding that two can play at infidelity (so what if his wolf is loyal to the core?), while unknowingly walking right into Vlad’s clutches. On top of that there is a crazy menagerie of supporting characters, each who have their own agenda, or need something from Sylver and Hunter. Sorting out everyone else’s messes is tough work (even though Sylver usually has a hand in creating them), but can they solve their own mess and stop Vlad?  Maybe, if they get their priorities straight.  In Sylver’s words, “If I don’t get rid of this boner, I won’t be able to walk, let alone fight!”, or more precisely, “Fuck first, then save the world.”

I loved both of the prior stories in this series, but this installment really took the cake. This series is quite different from most paranormals, mostly because the focus is on the humor and cheeky plot, instead of world-building.  Usually incredibly campy and always ready with a comeback, Sylver is a great character who constantly seems to get himself in trouble, and relish doing so. An admitted exhibitionist (and wow, there is some hot public sex in this book) and a kick-ass alpha character no matter the number of frilly dresses he ruins having to shift on the fly, Sylver is the kind of character I love to read about — he defies stereotypes.  He is a cross-dressing alpha male werewolf, he is fiercely loyal, and despite always poking his nose into everyone else’s business, truly wants to help people.  His actions and voice perfectly suit Mimi Riser’s type of humor, because everything Sylver does (as well as the rest of the plot) is <i>way</i> over the top. Hunter is a character that you can’t help but love, even though he’s a cheater (well, a reformed cheater, anyway). This book showed the lengths Hunter goes to in order to please Sylver and abstain from sex with other partners (which, apparently, is almost impossible for a werecat in this world) much more than the previous books did. When you put Sylver and Hunter together, they are constantly at each other’s throats, trying to out-top the other, whether in bed or in a fight, though with their relationship there isn’t much difference between the two!  At the same time, they are perfect for one another, as only they could hope to keep the other in line.

Their relationship is what makes these books interesting and original, yes — but the added length in The Werewolf in Red allowed their relationship to play out for more than a couple of scenes, and on a much larger scale with more at stake. The added plot carried their relationship rather than using their relationship to support a short story, which was how the first two installments were presented.  Both of those stories were wonderful, but they felt like they were just getting started when they ended, leaving me wanting more. I didn’t feel that bite of disappointment here because the story was carried to it’s natural conclusion. We also get Hunter’s POV in this book, rather than viewing the story solely through Sylver’s eyes and thoughts. It was refreshing to see the world presented through Hunter’s eyes and it helped me to understand him more fully. There were a few times that I wondered where the plot was going, because it never seemed to go the direction I assumed it would, which led to lots of interesting surprises and several smaller sub-plots, but it always seemed to get back on track and ultimately pulled together nicely. In the end, I was delighted to have read a book that surprised me and had me laughing out loud at it’s utter ridiculousness.

Here’s a sample of Sylver’s storytelling from early on in the story that had me laughing as he describes his little cousin’s Irish babysitter, Hennie:

“I was viciously pecked in me youth by a were-chicken,” she confided in me earlier today. “Such a horror it was!”

I can imagine. Ever since, she’s had the bothersome tendency to shift without warning into a Rhode Island Red. But it only happens when she’s upset. Stress seems to trigger the metamorphosis. As a result, Hennie’s never far from a whiskey bottle. “Me nerve medicine,” she calls it.

So, okay, the woman’s a bit of a lush, but she’s got good reason. If you worked for a family of werewolves, would you want to risk turning into a chicken? Of course not.

The whole Sylver and Steele series has been a treat to read, but this last one is by far the best. There is so much more in this story than the tumultuous relationship between Sylver and Hunter and the details and characters are wonderful. I would recommend this book, and though I would say that you needn’t read Your Cheatin’ Heart or Thunderball to enjoy The Werewolf in Red, I would recommend reading them all. The story relies pretty heavily on the humor, so differing tastes might mean a different experience per reader, though this book in the series has a lot more to back it up than the previous installments.  I am certainly a fan 🙂  I hope there are many more Sylver and Steele stories to come!