Simon Thorn and the Wolf's Den - Aimée Carter

The concept of shape shifting is hardly original, yet there is still something very appealing about it. As a kid I longed to be able to transform into a cat and as a teen I loved Kate Thompson’s Switchers series. Perhaps our interest lingers because it is because it is one of the few things humans still can’t do: we can fly, bring people back from the dead and predict a good deal of the future thanks to technology. Even so, we may never be able to become a cat or an eagle or a wolf at will, and we always crave what we can’t have. With this in mind, the slew of books and films with this theme becomes more understandable.

Simon Thorn and the Wolf’s Den is the first in a series of five books about Animalgams – humans with the ability to “shift” into another creature. Unlike in Switchers, where anyone can be any animal, each Animalgam has one specific species they can shift into, and unlike, for example, the Animagi in Harry Potter, they have no control over which animal they get; they are born with it.

At age twelve, our protagonist Simon has not yet shifted, and doesn’t for most of the book, making the reader more and more eager to discover what he will become. On a quest to rescue his kidnapped mother he encounters Animalgams of all sorts: from the friendly dolphin Jam to the smart, sassy spider Ariana. There is also, as the title suggests, a large number of wolves, which gets a bit tedious after a while – maybe it’s because I’ve always been a cat person and not a dog one, but I did begin to think, not another wolf, to myself. Can we meet some other species, please?

The action is non-stop, from the first page to the last. However, it would have been nice if every now and then the reader had a moment to stop and digest what’s happening before the plot goes rattling on again. It is pretty relentless. That said, some people may enjoy that kind of pace. The entire novel takes place in New York City, with the characters constantly dashing around it. This is a potential problem for British readers: I watch way too much How I Met Your Mother and therefore have a basic knowledge of the layout of Manhattan and Central Park but the average twelve-year-old Brit would probably feel totally lost.

The ending for me was a bit disappointing, with an unnecessary character death and the rules of the Animalgam world, so carefully set out, being completely broken with no explanation. Hopefully this explanation will come in the following book, but for now, I’m slightly frustrated. Overall Simon Thorn and the Wolf’s Den was an enjoyable read, and one I recommend to fans of fantasy, action and animals.


*This review was originally written for Cuckoo Review (New Writing North) and is reprinted with permission*

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