Here's the First Review for "Lycanthropic Summer"

 Yesterday was a working Sunday AND my youngest son turned a quarter if a century.

So when I signed off the computer yesterday, I didn't jump back online until this morning.

I found this waiting for me on Amazon - and I'm humbled, honored, and awake (I was stumbling around Monday morning fashion until I read this0.

May all of you who write have fans as loyal as this one.

May all of you who read find as great of enjoyment in your books.

And may all of us have a great Monday

 Lyncanthropic Summer has one helluva bite

Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2020

Verified Purchase

Author, Denise Baran-Unland, banks on the fact that her readers will take her words at face value. She uses words sparingly, but all are carefully chosen to reveal only what she wants the reader to see. Oh, and she hides a lot between the lines.

"Lycanthropic Summer" is one of the most terrifying books I've ever read because its characters appear so normal. Five pages in I found myself identifying with 17-year-old protagonist, Caryn Rochelle. Like Caryn, I was a hostile, snotty and potty-mouthed teen. That was the hook. Once I swallowed it, I deluded myself that I knew where the story was heading.

Summarily, Caryn is obsessed by werewolves and longs to author "The World's Greatest Werewolf Love Story." Again, what girl on the threshold of ripe womanhood isn't drawn to virile and dangerous men? For me it was Bela Lugosi's Dracula, Caryn likes her men dangerous and hairy.

{For instance} the entire romance novel industry thrives on dark desires. The wanton (but virginal) protagonist finds her beast. After playing hard to get for at least ten chapters, she bestows her greatest gift upon him - her maidenhead. Her love transforms him from a beast back into the misunderstood youngest son of Scottish royalty. He sweeps her away to his Edinburgh castle, etc.

 "Lycanthropic Summer" is not a romance novel. Still, I was sort of hoping for a mutually-satisfying resolution. After all, a werewolf is really just a great, big dog, right? Sure, Caryn's werewolf isn't titled, well-groomed or paper trained, but even Lassie had to start somewhere.

 Let's talk terror. If you love stories about sewer-dwelling clowns that devour children, the subtleties of "Lycanthropic Summer" might be wasted on you. Unland's style is closer to Alfred Hitchcock's. One of the most frightening 30 seconds in cinema is the shower scene in "Psycho." Like Hitchcock, Unland doesn't underestimate her reader's imagination. She understands the most terrifying thoughts are locked within our subconscious (and she holds the key).

The story didn't immediately scare me. The terror crept up on me, slowly and inexorably. I was reading alone in the evening, just after dark. Now, I knew the thud issuing from my back porch was Millie the Raccoon stealing cat food, but my heart nearly exploded. I turned on every light in the house and searched all rooms (including closets) for a growling, slobbering werewolf (yes, really). I could not even work up the nerve to open the back door.

At some point, I no longer identified with Caryn, and I realized her veterinarian father and "Aunt Silly" were genuinely creepy - maybe even evil. Like Unland's "Bryony" series, there are fugue states and altered reality that play with your mind and defeat logic. The story could be interpreted in a number of ways, all of them frightening.

Is the boy she finds chained in a rich man's basement the child who mysteriously disappeared with his parents nearly eighteen years ago? Is he a werewolf, a prisoner or mentally ill? Why does Caryn feel a psychic connection to him? Whatever the truth, the unfortunate young man inspires Caryn to write, and what she writes is horrifying. It becomes increasingly clear she has no desire to discover the werewolf's inner-Lassie.

As Caryn spins out of control, existing between the pages of her book, her father and aunt appear stupidly unaware of her plight. There are moments of lucidity in which Caryn is about to put two and two together, but the obsession clouds her logic. When she finally learns the truth, it's too late. Or is it?