Lonely Werewolf Girl by Martin Millar

This is what you get when you borrow a book from a copyeditor

I finally finished Lonely Werewolf Girl by Martin Millar (published by Soft Skull Press). If you buy a copy from here, the author will sign it. Apparently, he's working on a sequel. How can you not like a book whose main character is a depressed young werewolf whose only comfort comes from laudanum and The Runaways?

Is it just me or do plot synopses of sci fi/fantasy books always sound silly?

Teenage werewolf Kalix MacRinnalch is being pursued through the streets of London by murderous hunters, while her sister, the Werewolf Enchantress, is busy designing clothes for the Fire Queen (who is unstoppable in battle yet can be reduced to floods of tears if someone wears the same designer outfit at a party).

Meanwhile, in the Scottish Highlands the MacRinnalch Clan is beset with internecine conflict after the Thane of their clan dies intestate. Scandalously, the Thane's death was the result of a mortal injury inflicted by his emotionally unstable teenage daughter, the afore-mentioned Kalix, who it turns out is on the lamm.

As the court intrigue threatens to flare into civil war, the competing factions find that Kalix is the swing vote necessary to assume leadership of the clan. Thing of it is, quite apart from her fear of reprisals, she was never much into clan politics, especially after her father banned her from seeing her boyfriend Gawain. But she is rather into laudanum.

I think this sounds better (both are from Soft Skull):

Lonely Werewolf Girl is an expansive tale of werewolves in the modern world—elegant werewolves, troubled teenage werewolves, friendly werewolves, homicidal werewolves, fashion designers, warriors, punks, cross-dressers, musicians—an entire Clan of Werewolves, getting in trouble from the Scottish Highlands to London, and in several dimensions beyond . . .

And check out this outstanding blurb from Neil Gaiman:

I [don't] understand why Martin Millar isn't as celebrated as Kurt Vonnegut, as rich as Terry Pratchett, as famous as Douglas Adams . . . I've been a fan of his work for almost twenty years.