S.J. Bell

Bonds of Fenris surprised me. Judging by the synopsis I was expecting something along the lines of Carrie Vaughn or at least Kelley Armstrong, but this was a deep soul-searching story of someone who finds her own identity along the way. In fact, S.J.Bell's emphasis on our struggles with our own humanity strongly reminded me of Maggie Stiefvater's work.

Talia is a young woman whose life changed for the worse since she was attacked and turned by a mad werewolf. Luckily she was found by his other victims before her first change, and they tried to teach her the ropes of dealing with her condition.

Since then she ceased all contact with her family, barely manages at college and is forced to do jobs that require as little contact with people as possible. The other members of her bedraggled pack are doing even worse, because none of them can control their werewolf nature properly and they are terrified that they might attack people on the street because of that.

One night during the full moon when Talia is forced to change, she meets a strange werewolf who can resist the call of the moon, mingle with people and lead a normal life. Corwin tells her to come to him if she needs to talk to someone or ask for help.

Desperate, depressed and struggling to have some semblance of normal life Talia decides to see him despite her pack's warnings not to trust this stranger, and Corwin offers her a chance to learn to control her wolf.

Corwin himself learnt all this by chance, almost dying in process, so the conditions he recreates are dangerous and almost impossible to work with. In fact, none of the other werewolves he tried to help managed to get through the quest, but Talia has nothing to lose, she is strong, stubborn and very determined.

What follows is a very interesting and difficult psychological experiment with unexpected results that in retrospect make perfect sense, and I loved that! I loved how S.J.Bell used the power of human mind instead of some weird and wonderful magical potions to reach the solution to Talia's problem.

This book is very grounded, the characters are easy to relate to, and most importantly, Bonds of Fenris makes you think. Not many books do that these days.

My only complaint is that Talia's voice is hard to get into, it takes some time to get used to her actions being described at the same time as her thoughts on her past actions, which for me slowed everything down.

Overall, recommended to all fans of werewolves and Maggie Stiefvater.… (meer)

Talia had an instant family but she still felt like she didn't belong. This was because she didn't know who or what she was. Looking beyond the romance I find this to be a coming of age story. Talia needed to find out who she was, accept it so that she could live fulfilling life. When Corwin asks her the question "who are you?" you can't help but find yourself on that other side of the question. it invokes a thought and for a second you are in Talia's shoes.


Thank you for writing a beautiful story. I think the hardest part of an author's work is to engage his or her audience and you did that very well. Although I found some of the sentences kind of dragging me along, it did not deter me from the story.

Thanks again.… (meer)

Talia had an instant family but she still felt like she didn't belong. This was because she didn't know who or what she was. Looking beyond the romance I find this to be a coming of age story. Talia needed to find out who she was, accept it so that she could live fulfilling life. When Corwin asks her the question "who are you?" you can't help but find yourself on that other side of the question. it invokes a thought and for a second you are in Talia's shoes.


Thank you for writing a beautiful story. I think the hardest part of an author's work is to engage his or her audience and you did that very well. Although I found some of the sentences kind of dragging me along, it did not deter me from the story.

Thanks again.… (meer)