Review: The Naturals

By Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Available now from Miramax (Disney Hyperion)
Review copy
Read my review of Raised by Wolves

Jennifer Lynn Barnes is one of those authors that routinely has interesting new books coming out but has never found mainstream success.  Personally, I'm very fond of her work.  She's not someone who comes to mind when I'm making favorites lists, but I've never been disappointed by one of her books.

THE NATURALS is the story of Cassie, a seventeen-year-old girl who is a natural at profiling, who joins a group of teens at the FBI who have their own natural special abilities that can be used to solve crimes.  They each have their own reason for wanting to spend their days studying serial killers, statistics, and other related topics.  Cassie is driven by the unsolved murder of her mother, whose body was never found.

Obviously, that becomes relevant to the case the teens find themselves pursuing.

What really makes THE NATURALS work is the characters.  Cassie falls into a love triangle with Michael and Dean, but it doesn't seem forced.  They're attractive, intelligent guys and while they're both a bit standoffish at first, they explain their reasons and are generally perfectly nice to her.  The other girls, Lia and Sloane, both develop on their own.  Cassie becomes closer to Sloane, and not just because they're roommates.  All five teens have their own personalities.  It made me kind of sad that THE NATURALS is a standalone, because I'd like to see how their relationships would develop.

I'm totally not sad it's a standalone.  More standalones!

As for the detecting, it could use a little work.  THE NATURALS has a villain POV, a trope I'm not hugely fond of.  In this case, I don't think it really added or detracted from the story.  There are a few gory moments in those passages that might turn off more sensitive readers.  The kids aren't experts, of course, despite their abilities, but I wished they'd contributed more to finding out who the killer is.  The identity is a plot twist instead of a mystery solved by the characters.  That keeps things exciting, but I found it left satisfying after I finished.

THE NATURALS is a quick, fun read that will appeal to fans of ensemble procedurals.  I like that it doesn't resolve absolutely everything and that while there is a love triangle, it comes in a distant second to catching murderers.  The premise is a little silly, but I like bought into it, especially since a large part of the book is the characters training to use their talents effectively.  This isn't Barnes' strongest book, but it probably has the broadest appeal.

Review: Raised by Wolves

The mosquitos in North Dakota are nuts. I have welts up and down my arms, as well as on some more uncomfortable places. I will miss my niece and nephew when I leave next Monday, but not the bug life.

By Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Available now from Egmont
Review Copy

Jennifer Lynn Barnes has an interesting livejournal, which is where I first heard of her. It prompted me to pick up TATTOO, which I enjoyed. (I'm still looking for a copy of FATE.) I'm amazed at how prolific she is, considering the whole college thing and that she's now going off to research in the UK. I'm also amazed that given those constraints her books are so much fun.

RAISED BY WOLVES is the story of Bryn, a young woman who was . . . raised by wolves. She knows how to walk the walk and talk the talk, having lived with werewolves since her parents' murder when she was just a child. But now that she's pretty much a grown-up, she's starting to push the boundaries even more and figure out her place in the world, which has never really existed. Unfortunately, this self-exploration coincides with the arrival of a new werewolf: Chase. Chase was bitten by a rabid, but Bryn always thought you couldn't become a werewolf through a bite.

Perhaps Bryn would recover from this information without much trouble, but she and Chase feel and strange connection and start exhibiting special, unique qualities. This is what I love about Barnes's approach. Normally, I'd be getting annoyed by the human raised by wolves who has super special powers. Yet there always appears to be some reason that Bryn is special aside from the fact she's the main character and it turns out she's not the only special one.

Personally, I felt more attached to most of the secondary characters other than Chase. He's sort of bland and never fleshed out aside from what he means to Bryn's self-discovery. Her old werewolf pals, however, are brilliant. The world's first metrosexual werewolf and a werewolf girl who likes to find out people's secrets and has a weapons fetish would of course be friends with the human Pack member. Callum, the Pack alpha, is also quite compelling. He obviously cares for Bryn, but he just as obviously is caught between a rock and a hard place as he has to enforce the laws and ideals he's shaped.

There's complexity lying beneath RAISED BY WOLVES. There's an exploration of family ties, chosen and natural. There's analysis of a different sort of society, what makes it work and what it's weak points are. There are questions about strength. Ali, Bryn's foster-mother, another human Pack member, may be the strongest character in the book. She sees things more clearly than the younger Bryn and, like Callum, can make the tough decisions needed to keep her family safe.

While some of this complexity slows things down at points (infodumps, mostly), RAISED BY WOLVES generally doesn't feel like it's more complex than your standard paranormal romance. Barnes keeps things moving along and tends to make the proceedings humorous when possible. She has a charming authorial voice that's just what's needed to keep a headstrong and impulsive protagonist like Bryn empathetic. I hope that there will be a sequel just because I enjoyed the world so much.