I have to warn you that I have to put mild spoilers into the review, since I otherwise couldn’t tell you pretty much nothing about the plot. And I would want to know at least some things. For example that this is a werewolf story. Yep, and that could have resulted in some generic YA that felt as if one read it many times over already. But it didn’t. Firstly, a lot of roles are reversed here and secondly, the atmosphere, the characters and the overall picture are really good and feel new.
Aaron „Rain“ Ryland lives a hard life on the street with his addicted mother, moving from shelter to shelter. When his mother dies, he is sent to his only relative, an aunt he had no knowledge of, living in a very very rural small town right in the middle of nowhere. This starts a whole can of revelations about himself, his mother and the reasons behind a lot of seemingly random moves. And he gets to know Freddy, a tough girl with a group of guys who are always around her. And although she seems to like Rain immediately (yep, the insta-thing is one of the few things I didn’t overly love), she warns him off. Tells him, she is dangerous. As a reader of loads of UF, YA, and PNR, I knew from the first moment on that she was a werewolf. And she is cool and although not too well fleshed-out, she is a welcome diversion as a beauty who is also the beast. Rain is still the pretty ordinary alpha-male, thinking, he has to protect the girl, yaddayaddayadda. But although I don’t really know what a young man sounds like in his head, this 3rd person POV of his did ring true.
The story is a good one and I appreciated that especially Rain’s relationship to his aunt is so well written. The romance between the Rain and Freddy was alright, but made a lot more interesting because we have only Rain‘s POV. And Freddy doesn’t behave too predictable, so that was that.
The world building was enhanced by a complicated political net in the small town concerning the werewolves themselves, their connection to the resident witches and I especially loved that it was not too easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys. It takes a rather long timel until the whole spiel is revealed and that was one of the factors that kept me glued to the pages. If you like a slightly different take on the „YA-werewolf-take“, „Haven“ is for you. Oh and it’s a standalone novel for a change. And a well written one.
![Haven by [Mary Lindsey]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/617Wr71F0fL._SY346_.jpg)
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Mina
A dark and gritty Young Adult story with a new take on an old theme
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