Rating: 4 stars (Spotlight Review)

This collection of fifteen Christmas tales (and tails) involving werewolves contains very little filler, and is definitely a keeper for my personal library. Readers preconceptions of the holiday will be highlighted in sharp relief as several of these shorts take traditional characters long strides away from their better-known roles of the yuletide season. Still other shorts will unveil those characters and show them for what and who they really are. As is my tradition, I gift to you the best of the best.

My all-time favorite short in this novel was Keeping Watch Over His Flock, by Toni L. P. Kelner. The origins of werewolves are explained within a Christian setting, and a juvenile werewolf saves a little girl from a pedophile masquerading as Santa Claus. It's not all tearjerker though; the teens go to Dogwarts!

The Haire of the Beast by Donna Andrews also caught my interest: A tale of how to turn an ex-boyfriend into a Lhasa Apso by baking a batch of brownies. Karma’s a bitch.

Lucy, at Christmastime, by Simon R. Green, turns the typical nostalgic Christmas tale on its ear when the power of the Nightside allows us to listen in on Leo Morn’s inner monologue. Leo mourns his first love (and his first victim) in a bar with her ghost. It is Intense and moving.

Fresh Meat, by Alan Gordon. A dog trainer is attacked on Christmas Eve, and saved by his charges. I loved this short. I read it thrice and laughed every time. If there were to be a novel based on this, I’d buy it. The attack dachshund was hilarious. I’m in love!

----------------------

ISBN: 0978-0-441-01633-4
Publication through Ace