Rating: 3 stars

Being sixteen is difficult enough when you're a regular teenager. For Dru Anderson though, pimples and homework are the easy parts. It's the constant moving due to her father's job that makes life hard. Dru's father hunts the things that go bump in the night.

One night something bumps back and leaves Dru stranded and forced to figure out the mystery of her father's disappearance.

Dru was five years old when her mother died and her father dropped out of society to live on the fringes. Raised by her spiritual grandmother and later trained by her father, Dru knows the truth about the Real World but she doesn't know enough. Now left without any adults she has to rely on Graves, a boy she hardly knows, to find the truth. Something is hunting Dru though, following her, knocking on her door in the early morning hours. When Graves is injured and infected by a werwulfen, the stakes are increased. The two band together, joined by another young man who knows everything that Dru doesn't but is he friend or foe? Nothing is certain in the Real World and though Dru longs for the guiding hand of an adult, there is no one who can help her now but herself.

My initial impression of this book was "It's Supernatural but with a teenage daughter instead of two adult sons."

While it's not a bad story it isn't extraordinary or truly special; no new ground is broken. The character development is good and the writing itself has its moments of loud-out-loud humor which is something I've come to expect from St. Crow. The action scenes however, and the more dramatic notes are somewhat flat and unimpressive. Overall, it's a mildly-entertaining but forgettable entry in the burgeoning world of paranormal YA.
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Reading level: Young Adult
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Razorbill (May 14, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1595142517
ISBN-13: 978-1595142511