Animals have been used in battles for as long as humans have been fighting wars - at least as far as I understand. Beyond transportation, be it warhorses, camels, or elephants, there are sniffer dogs for bomb detection, and even dolphins and sea lions have not escaped this sad fate. But in ‘A Wolf’s Resistance’, the author has taken it a step further and presents the idea of werewolves carrying messages across enemy lines in World War Two. What better way to hide your spies than to let them cross the border in wolf form, as part of a natural pack, then return to human shape to pass on the information once they are safe back in Allied territory? I am sure that if werewolves were real, that is exactly what would have happened!

In this story, Renny is a werewolf, or loup-garou, working for the Résistance in France of 1944.He has been caught by French collaborators and branded as a traitor, but managed to escape. He is at the end of his tether, wounded and ready to give up when he finds a blacksmith’s small farm at the edge of a small town. Best of all are the chickens the man raises, they are just what he needs as he is starving. But the blacksmith is vigilant and Renny is too exhausted to run when the blacksmith shoots him.

Marc cannot believe his eyes when the wolf he tried to scare away turns out to be a human. A very attractive man, no less, and one who needs his help if he is to survive the hated collaborators who are hunting him. Marc is not normally a risk-taker, but there is something about Renny that makes him reconsider. To Marc, fooling them and helping Renny feels as though he can finally do his part in winning the war.

Marc’s disgust with the soldiers when they return to search his home in more detail is palpable. The ease with which they eat his food and try to terrorize him is depicted really well. And Marc’s quiet resistance and determination through it all are admirable. But all Renny and Marc have is a couple of days and one night together, before a more thorough search is sure to reveal Renny.

If you like unusual stories about werewolves in a historical setting, if brutally realistic stories that look as if a happy ending is impossible are your thing, and if you’re interested in a read that is realistically depressing until it snatches happiness from the jaws of almost certain defeat, then you will probably like this novella.


NOTE: This book was provided by Dreamspinner Press for the purpose of a review on Rainbow Book Reviews. ( )

4.5 stars

I put off reading this story, as the description intimated it might be rather dark. I have studied Vichy France and suspected this might not be a pleasant tale. While it certainly was not a light, sweet romantic story, and it might be a bit too dark for some romance readers, it was absolutely perfect for me. In part, I think I related to it because it seems to me to present a good, realistic flavor of how difficult it was to be a gay man before the sexual and cultural revolution of the last forty years.

The writing gripped me from the beginning, with initial scene of a resistance fighter (and wolf shifter) on the run from German-aligned French "soldiers" (Milice militia-like policemen, I assume). The author's slight tweaks on typical shifter paradigms, including significant but not complete healing from injuries, also signified this would not be a typical shifter tale. The strength of the work, however, had little to do with the paranormal aspects, but the struggles of two injured men trying to survive in an extremely hostile world, and both doing at least a bit of their part towards a better future.

The romantic connection might be considered rather flat compared to many entries in this genre, but to me the whole story was a slow, steady, and very palpable building of an intimate connection, even if it was deeply internalized and not apparent to others (or even themselves). Actually, this slow, internal build seemed to ring very true for those who had to live in environments that require an extremely closeted life.

(additional comments and full review on blog) ( )