Kindle Edition Audiobook Download to your Nook (eBook) Download from Apple iTunes (eBook) Amazon Roxanne Smolen Facts and Fiction Kobo Category:  Young Adult/Teen Publisher: moonRox, Inc. ISBN-10:  0991567315 Type: Fiction Pages: 408 Copyright: May 1, 2014 ISBN-13: 9780991567317 Price: $0.99 (eBook) A bumbling nerd becomes a werewolf and finds he has superpowers. Cody plans to become a doctor. Instead, he becomes a werewolf. The first time he shows fang and fur, his parents ship him off to podunkville to live with his black sheep uncle. His revised career choice is social hermit. As the new kid, he makes more enemies than friends. His high school teachers label him a trouble maker. The whole town hates him. Except Brittany. She's beautiful, with her eyes painted black and her lips dark purple. When Brittany discovers his secret, she tries to cure him using crystals, candles, and magic potions. Cody falls head-over-tails in love, but he can never tell her. Girls like her aren't for him. He's the amazing wolf boy. Astound your family and mystify your friends. While Cody moons over Brittany, a murderous pack of lycanthropes howl into town. They want Cody to join them. When he refuses, they kidnap Brittany and threaten to kill her at moonrise. Cody must master his untried superpowers or the girl he loves dies. Can he defeat the pack and save both their lives? Available in print or ebook at your favorite bookstore. Also available as and audiobook at Audible. Excerpt CHAPTER ONE I’ll never forget the night my life ended. It was Christmas Eve, 2007, and I was in France with my parents at Maison Kammerzell, one of those fancy historic restaurants. The room glowed with plastic icicles. Ropes of apples and mistletoe hung from the ceiling. My tie felt like a noose and my suit coat a straitjacket. We were dining on le Reveillon, a holiday feast of roast capon, which is a castrated chicken, and boudin blanc, which always tastes like vanilla pudding to me. My mother waved her hands as she described in detail the Christmas decorations at the Charity Ball she chaired. I love my mother, I really do, but give her a glass of wine and she can outtalk an auctioneer. My father listened with a rapt expression, letting her build up steam. I thought about my DS back in the hotel room. Out the window, beyond the reflection of red and gold holiday lights, I saw a full moon. As if someone threw a switch inside my head, my senses came alive. The room rang with the clink of china and crystal. The string quartet, whose Christmas Carols had gone all but unheard in the hectic atmosphere, now played sharp and clear. Scents rose from my table and mixed with those from surrounding tables. I put down my fork, staring at my plate. My nose told me that the poor, mutilated rooster I’d been eating was stuffed with rosemary. The bird reeked. I couldn’t believe I’d put that in my mouth. It made my skin crawl. For real. I could see the hair on the back of my hands stand up. Hair on my hands? When did that happen? Before I thought of a satisfactory explanation, agony gripped me. I clutched the sides of my head. It felt as if my skull cracked open, as if someone pulled off my face. My teeth ached so bad I couldn’t close my lips. Drool dribbled down my chin. I covered my mouth with my hands and froze. It didn’t feel like me. The nose was flat. The jaw protruded. I ran my tongue over my teeth. They were long and sharp. Like fangs. I leaped to my feet, almost knocking over my chair. While my mother prattled on about the ball, I rushed from the table. My only thought was to hide. It might have made sense to yell for help, both my parents are doctors, but I didn’t want the other diners to see me. So I zigzagged through the tables with my napkin to my face, dodging curious stares. Panic churned the over-spiced food in my stomach. I reached the lobby. A couple came in arm-in-arm through the door, and another couple greeted them. They laughed and shook hands, blocking the exit. A man stepped out of the men’s room, while two others went inside. Couldn’t hide there. Too busy. The smell of leather and fur radiated from the coatroom. When the distracted coat-check girl turned her back, I ducked inside. Excruciating pain wracked my body. Every muscle clenched and twisted. I felt as if my bones shrank and elongated at the same time. Sweat poured from my skin. I tore off my suit coat and unbuttoned my shirt, gasping as cool air hit my chest. Trapped in a sort of mental haze, I climbed behind the mink and sable wraps. My father’s voice snapped me to wakefulness. “I’m looking for my son, Cody.” It sounded like he was at the front desk. I could walk that far. Still sweating, I got to my feet. All four feet. I yelped, and the sound that burst from my throat was not human. I stared at sleek silver paws. As I stumbled forward, my pants slid from my hindquarters. “Cody? Are you in here?” my father called. Before I saw him, I smelled him—from his shampoo to his shoe polish to the residue of dinner that clung to his pores. He stood in the doorway of the coatroom, his face unreadable. Then he said, “For crying out loud.”

Great Writing from an Author I Will Watch
I'm generally not a big fan of "shifter" type books, but I have to admit that I truly enjoyed this one. I listened to the Audible version and it was excellent. Danny Randerson did a great job changing his voice for each character.

Cody, a nerdy 16-year-old boy, has no idea that he comes from a long line of werewolves. So when his family is celebrating the holidays in Paris he is shocked at what was happening to him when he suddenly changed into a wolf. This part bothered me a bit. I couldn't quite understand why his mother never told him about his heritage when all the signs were there. And why would his parents take a chance on taking him out in public during a full moon? And I didn't understand why they didn't explain why they were sending him to live with Uncle Bob in Florida. AND why an intelligent boy like Cody didn't immediately figure out what the deal was with Uncle Bob (the reader figured it out immediately). But I will put all of that aside because Roxanne Smolen wrote an exciting, beautifully written, entertaining tale that included so many of the elements I love in a novel. There was even a bit of young romance... all clean and sweet, so that this book will do well for young adults.

The characters were well developed and likeable. Very likeable. The story was exciting and entertaining with the whole good vs. evil (even though you generally think of werewolves as being evil). And there were quite a few laugh-out-loud moments, like when grandpa starting shooting his pellet gun at the nudists.. er, I mean "naturalists". I would have liked to have learned more about Howard, but perhaps he will be addressed further in the other books in this series. The Indian folklore was fascinating.

Yes, Roxanne Smolen is an author I will watch, and I'm sure I will be picking up Book #2 in this series.

The Amazing Wolf Boy
Cody, the Amazing Wolf Boy, was an ordinary guy until Christmas Eve dinner a few months after he turned sixteen. Instead of sticking around after the meal for dessert, Cody turned into a giant silver wolf and spent the night running through the streets in nothing but a necktie. His parents promptly sent him out to live with Uncle Bob. Then things got really complicated with Cody as he faced bullies and a pretty girl who likes werewolf movies.

I think Smolen did a great job building the conflict of this story around a subject most teen boys (and even guys in their twenties and thirties, speaking from introspection… ahem!) struggle with. It’s not growing hair in funny places and howling at girls, either. Cody is unwilling to share his inner life and his complicated secrets with the people he is close to. It complicates his situation time and time again.

Smolen approaches a very hot social issue for teens right now, bullying. Cody faces a few bullies and I enjoyed watching the character grow and react as the theme reoccurred. I was driving through the woods, up north, nodding along as Cody did something most would consider a bad idea because of how the reaction went over with his prior experience. I said to myself, “Yeah, a younger me with no sense of danger or long term consequences would act like that.” Not aging careful me with aches on rainy days.

I received an audible code in exchange for a review. Any review. That fact that it’s a good one is because the book is good. Which has nothing to do with how awesome I am. You’ll have to find that out for yourself @S_Shane_Thomas on Twitter.

If you enjoyed Teen Wolf, stories about high school problems, or books whose authors really grasp the concept of themes then Amazing Wolf Boy is for you. I’m looking forward to listening to the sequel. There were a number of strange, seemingly unrelated plot threads around the midpoint, but they all wove together very nicely.

Great Job by an Awesome Author
This story totally captivated me. It was hard to put down and kept me up late. I couldn't wait to get to the next book and then the next! Great job by an awesome author!