I kind of knew going back into this re-read that the book wasn’t going to live up to my memories, but surprisingly I ended up rather enjoying the book despite its weaknesses. The story centers around Weiland, a shape-changed wolf under the control of an evil sorceress, who must choose between continuing to live in thrall to his mistress or potentially becoming a wolf forever. Vande Velde’s story and characters are a bit shallower than I’ve come to expect from fantasy novels, but the suspense of Weiland struggling with his dilemma is still engaging enough that I wanted to find out how his story ended. It’s pretty obvious to readers part of the way through the book that Weiland is not a shape-changed wolf, but actually a man who can be transformed into a wolf, but it is still satisfying to see his evil mistress Daria taken down in the final pages and to see him get his happy ending. ( )

I like Vande Velde's juveniles more, I guess.  This was an immersive read, with some interesting ideas, but it was too simple.  The focus was on adventure, instead of character- or world-building. ( )

I only really enjoyed about a third of the book, so for that alone it gets a two. I like the two main characters, but I mostly only read this volume to find out the background of the characters for when they are met in The Conjurer Princess. ( )