Lord Loss

Darren Shan switches from Vampires to Werewolves, and I love it! Scary and funny with plot twists and great characters, this is a great introduction for a new series for Shan. It all starts when Grubbs Grady discovers his entire (chess-obsessed) family dead, their bodies being played with by demons and a demon master, Lord Loss. He soon finds out that his bloodline has a genetic disease, where teenagers often become werewolves. And this isn't howl at the moon once a month werewolves. Transformations occur around the full moon, but they are permanent and the child must either be killed or controlled. Lord Loss is the only one with a cure, but you'll have to play his game first. One person fights off his demons, one person plays him in five simultaneous games of chess. If either one of these people looses, then Lord Loss gets them both... and the child. As if that weren't enough, if the person playing chess manages to win three games, it still isn't over. The fighter and the child can go free, but the person playing chess is taken to Lord Loss's demon dimension, where they must fight for their life. Lord Loss killed Grubbs' entire family and now he must decide if he is ready to face him himself in order to save a new-found family member.

Well, this plot description was longer than I intended, but seriously, this book was good. I like it better than the Cirque du Freak books, and just bought the second one and am itching to read it. The characters are easy to like, real, and funny. To be honest, I was worried that Shan would give us Darren, the narrator in Cirque to Freak, all over again but with werewolves. However, this didn't happen. The writing is conversational, first person like the Cirque du Freak, but Shan gives us an entirely different narrator and shows that he really is the master of horror and a great writer. This book reads a little older than the Cirque du Freak, and is just real. Shan doesn't shy away from teenage pregnancy, or adult infidelity. The horror elements are fantastic, but Shan's success comes from being able to ground them in the real world.