Seventeen-year-old Caleb O’Connor is a werewolf, but he doesn’t really believe in magic. He tries to break out of his reclusive magical community in Maine to go to MIT, hoping he can make it in in a technological world where no one believes in monsters. He’s drawn back to Maine when, one fateful weekend, his three best friends sneak into a mysterious, abandoned mansion. One of them, René, dies there. A second, Toby, is put on trial for his life by the magical community. His crime? Caleb never finds out for sure… except that somehow his friends have let loose something much worse than any of them could have imagined.
When Toby is executed, Caleb vows revenge: on the magical Community, but also on whatever escaped from the abandoned mansion. The problem is, he’s not even sure exactly what that is. He has rejected magic his whole life–but now, in order to avenge his friends, he will have to become a better student of magic than he ever was of science.
His opportunity comes in the form of one of his own professors, who admits that for many years he has worked for an “agency” that spies on vampires and werewolves. He invites Caleb to his old family castle in Romania for the summer, where he’ll teach him magic in exchange for help driving the Undead from the rugged mountains.
Caleb’s summer vacation ends up lasting six years. Along with learning how to harvest the magical powers of the elements, stars, and planets, he also leads a pack of Romanian werewolves and raises a “cub” as his own son. He learns hard lessons about loyalty and betrayal, and about the tangled balance between man, beast and monster.
Reviews
A compelling story with fresh insight into the supernatural world!
I loved “Only the Moon Howls.” I found I was drawn right into the story and the world of magical and supernatural beings. There were the traditional werewolves and vampires as well as many strange new creatures. This story also described how a modern day community of wizards live, hunt, hurt, and help these beings. The book uses a new lens to show how all these characters live and interact in today’s world; sometimes successfully and sadly many times not.
Good read!
– Bc, January 30, 2021 (Amazon)
Good read!
There’s something oddly enjoyable about “Only the Moon Howls”. Despite being published in 2013, it reads more like a 19th century paranormal novel – slow, dark, with hints of tragic pasts. It’s over a century late to be a huge success, alas, but more’s the pity.
The action takes place in the late 80s and early 90s. Caleb in an American werewolf who attends university, and whose wizard friend winds up in trouble when he releases vampires from their 50 year confinement, getting someone killed. The friend gets tried and, presumably, executed (off-screen).
Caleb finds himself drifting through life and dreaming of revenge, letting circumstances lead him to communist Romania, where he ends up in service to Alexandru Arghezi as a monster hunter. Together, they hunt vampires and other creatures, clearing the area of malevolent beings, while Caleb also joins a local werewolf pack.
One could write books about odd American beliefs about life under communism, but suffice it to say, the Romania in this book has nothing to do with the country itself, and everything to do with the rural backwater of many a vampire story, starting with Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”.
Aside from the setting which may or may not annoy a Romanian reader to distraction, the book is a slow, gothic delight, in which vampires feel like monsters (I wasn’t aware they still *could* feel like monsters, after all the shows and books), and werewolves are morally grey, both victims and perpetrators of violence. It’s mature, and in a sense realistic (although not exquisitely crafted).
It requires patience, because while there is a plot, and there is a mystery behind Arghezi’s obsession with hunting vampires, our point of view character isn’t particularly concerned or aware of those for most of the book. I’m not sure what the opposite of a cliffhanger is – a surprise plot? You expect nothing, yet it’s suddenly there to intrigue?
In more deference to 19th century books, and less deference to modern tastes, not everything gets resolved. Caleb’s thirst for revenge wanes. People go on with their lives. We don’t get to find out what happens next. But it’s all good.
– Roxana Chirilă, August 30, 2020 (Goodreads)
Great Story
This is a fun read and it really kept my attention. I liked the characters and story. I hope there will be a sequel in the future! I also bought it for my teenage daughter and she just loved it too!
– Susan L, November 24, 2020 (Amazon)
Does for Werewolves What Stoker Did for Vampires
While this book is set in modern times it is very similar in style, tone and atmosphere to the classic “Dracula” by Bram Stoker. By that I mean that it brings an austere dignity and depth of feeling to the tale being told, and treats the werewolf legend with great respect. This holds true not only for the scenes set in Transylvania, but for those set it Maine and elsewhere.
There is a brooding sense of menace and danger and a dark seriousness to the action. No sparkling vampires, no dim heroines, no dreamy teen heartthrobs. The choice of language and structure is slightly formal. Descriptions are restrained and dense. The characters are adult, and while they are vague, cryptic and ambiguous when the story calls for indirection, conversation is rich and full of expressed and suggested meaning.
Action scenes have an immediacy and authenticity. Werewolf scenes feel and read more like Jack London’s “The Call of the Wild” than like modern teen werewolf books.
– Pop Bop, June 2, 2014 (Amazon)
Seventeen-year-old Caleb O’Connor is a werewolf who is trying to fit into society at MIT, where he can blend in, unnoticed. When his best friend is executed by a group of wizards for breaking into an abandoned mansion and then opening a vault containing a sinister and powerful vampire, held prisoner for decades. Caleb doesn’t believe in magic, even though he is a magical creature, himself. He learns of a secret government agency that tracks down ‘monsters’ like the vampire and is talked into heading to Romania to assist a retired vampire hunter. Here he has the opportunity to learn the magic he needs to seek revenge for the death of his friend.
After nine years in Romania, Caleb has become the Alpha to a small pack of werewolves, a vampire hunter and accomplished wizard. He has loved and lost. He has learned the true meaning of “family,” while accepting who he is and gaining the respect of those around him.
As a debut author, Connie Senior has done well! There is an edginess to this dark fantasy throughout the book, aided by the setting, a castle in the woods of Romania, once overrun with vampires!
The characters are complex and vividly drawn with distinctive traits that cross the lines of good AND bad. Each character is important to the story and their pasts unfold as a huge part of the plot!
As I said, this is dark and it’s intense, these are not your sparkly vamps or cuddly werewolves so wear your garlic and keep the wolfsbane handy!
– Dianne, February 17, 2013 (Goodreads)