Nightshade

by Andrea Cremer

Book Overview

The first book of the internationally bestselling Nightshade series by New York Times bestselling author Andrea Robertson

Calla is the alpha female of a shape-shifting wolf pack. She is destined to marry Ren Laroche, the pack's alpha male. Together, they would rule their pack together, guarding sacred sites for the Keepers. But then, Calla saves a beautiful human boy, who captures her heart. Calla begins to question everything...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 014241980X
• ISBN13: 9780142419809
• Release Date: June 2011
• Publisher: Speak
• Length: 496 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.5" x 8.2"
• Age Range: 14 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 9 and higher

Customer Reviews

Sucks you right in

This book pulled me in so beautifully. Cremer created a much more believable and beautiful love triangle with more deserving men than Meyer ever could. The moral and ethics that Calla goes through between what is actually right and wrong vs what she was taught is a beautiful parallel to our own moral struggles daily. I love that this is a series because it ended on such a cliff it’s almost painful. There are tasteful but steamy love scenes. The complex emotions and world she has built in just 450 pages is astonishing and left me hungry for more of this world. Comparatively -to many other books- this book builds a world I could see really existing right under our noses. The inclusion of actual Latin phrases that actually translated perfectly was wonderful. I can tell she did a lot of research and was very thoughtful in creating this world. I will highly recommend this book to anyone who like Twilight or the Vampire Academy series. However beware: I read all three books, Nightshade, Wolfsbane, and Bloodrose in one month.

I wanted the animated cover

I only read the first chapter and yes it does Seem interesting and I do love the story so far… however the version of the book like the cover I got something different I wanted the animation cover instead of the real life girl because my mom questioned it and she said it looked scary… hopefully I can return it and get the other version.

Good Story

It is much more then a typical werewolf story. There are layers upon layers of secrets and mysteries within this book. Highly recommend.

Loooooove

Read this series a few years ago in high school and absolutely HAD to buy and read again. Amazingggg series.

Phenomenal YA Urban Fantasy; Passionate, Thought-provoking, Impossible to Put Down

Amidst the steady flux of young adult fiction centered around werewolf and vampire mythologies it can be difficult to seperate the wheat from the chaff, as the expression goes. This is in no way aided by the very talented art departments who serve up beautiful cover art months in advance to titillate would-be readers into purchasing a book they only know has a pretty wrapper and falls in a genre they like. But sometimes you get lucky and even though your gut reminds you not to judge a book by its cover you break down and buy it anyway only to find it really is a gem worth raving about. For me, Nightshade is exactly that kind of book. Calla has known since she was a child that she is promised to Renier. At Samhain, when the two celebrate their coming of age they will be mated as the alpha male and female of a new wolf pack. As Guardians in service of the Keepers their pack will protect a sacred site from the Searchers. She knows exactly who she is and what her life will be. There is no reason to question the master of her fate. But when Calla rescues Shay Doran, a human boy she is intrinsicly drawn to from the start, the course of her destiny takes a sharp turn. The world she has never questioned, the destiny she has never wavered from fulfilling becomes less and less clear. Soon she will be forced to choose between living in the comfort of an intricately crafted deception and a very uncertain truth. I don't wish to give anything away in my review if I can help it so please bear with me when I say that I feel the book's blurb doesn't really do the story justice. There is certainly a love triangle element here but I found it to be important without being the core of the story. Calla can't help but be torn between Ren and Shay, they represent very different needs she has. There is intense lust and passion throughout the unraveling of Calla's (for lack of a better term) "love life" that kept me biting my lip in anticipation. If you love a good like triangle you will love this book. Yet, even as she spends much of her time fretting over her impending nuptials and her attraction to Shay at its heart I think this is a story about a young woman choosing between what is expected of her and what she wants. As Nightshade unfolds there are many layers to the story. On the surface this is very enjoyable and entertaining romantic urban fantasy. Looking at it on a deeper level I, as an adult reader, found the morality issues very compelling. Calla is expected to blindly follow and obey. While Ren is by no means a bad match she doesn't have a choice in whom she mates with. Carefully sprinkled throughout the book you will find other small details that, if you're anything like me, will make you root for her rebellion. While the plot and characters are really great they wouldn't stand up well if Cremer wasn't a talented writer. I found her ability to convey a tone and set a mood with how she described a character's body language to be especially note worthy.

Fantastic YA book with one heck of a cliffhanger!!

I really enjoyed this book. Andrea Cremer has envisioned a whole new world of werewolves and a truly unique perspective and hierarchy that doesn't put them at the top of the food chain so to speak. Calla, our heroine/alpha wolf, has known since she was young that she would be paired with Ren. But when she saves a human, Shay, from death her whole world and views change. Of course, YA love triangles are common and have even sort of become "comfort zone" books to me. There ALWAYS seems to be a love-triangle in these books. Twilight has created a triangle-spawning MONSTER...but, this felt different to me. I really enjoyed it because there were so many intricacies between the three characters. You didn't really know who to be rooting for, but you knew all the characters were compelling and you wanted to know more about them...which kept me plunging into the book. Even during work I would sneak peaks into this in hopes of finding out more secrets and details to the plot. It really kept me guessing and the ending had me on the edge of my seat. Who are the bad guys? The Searchers or the Keepers? I can't wait until the next installment since it's a series. This definitely left off with quite the cliffhanger.It is probably the most epic cliffhanger I have actually had the discomfort to read in quite some time. It was extremely frustrating! Readers are going to be starving for the second in the series once putting this down. The lusting among the characters and the suspense in storyline kept my attention. And among all that, drama and action were thrown in there as well to entertain the reader leaving this story an amazing read that I would highly recommend.