I found this hardcover in this Little Free Library in Burlington MA while dropping off some books of my own, and nabbed it for another release copy.

Funny thing - I'm more used to long-lived vampire characters suffering existential angst, whereas the werewolves have much more immediate "oops, I just killed another person I loved while in the throes of The Change" problem. In this case it's the werewolf, Jake, who's very long-lived and is very unhappy about it. His only companion is his... Igor, it'd be, if he were a mad scientist, or Renfield if he were a vampire, but I haven't noticed werewolves with human sidekicks before. Anyway, that's Harley, who's 70-something now, and has been with Jake since Jake saved him from gay-bashers way back in the '60s. (Why Jake opted to save a life when he'd just finished devouring a perfectly innocent villager isn't clear; he says he thought what they were going to do to Harley was an offense against aesthetic judgement, possibly because the bashers did not need to feed, just wanted to be cruel.) Jake is actually rather sorry to have kept Harley in his life for so long; he seems to prefer to avoid attachments, even choosing to have sex only with women he doesn't like. So why should I care if this mopy 200-year-old killer wants to off himself?

Short answer: I don't, really. It seems like a really good idea, in fact, and a long time coming. And yet the way Jake describes incidents from his past, the way he trudges along coping with the change that was forced on him, the depression and the tantalizing conflicts are... intriguing. And there are variations in this novel's werewolf myth that also intrigue, such as the way the werewolf consumes the life and memories of the victims - extra reinforcement of what they've taken.

The story includes people vying to kill Jake before he gives up and offs himself - and others who want to save him as the Last Of His Kind. There's a vampires-vs.-werewolves element too, as if Jake didn't have enough problems. Things get very, very dangerous, with some heart-wrenching losses - and a denoument that surprised me.

[There's a TV Tropes page for this book and the next two volumes in the series, but beware of spoilers.]

I left this book in the Little Free Library on this rainy day; hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in NH here.]

*** Released for the 2018 Spook-Tacular October release challenge. ***

*** Released for the 2018 Tick Tock release challenge. ***

*** Released for the 2018 You're Such an Animal release challenge. ***