First off, the cover is gorgeous. Kudos, Mark. The artists you found did *right* by Pawly and that scene.
Anyway, off to the actual review of WERECATS RESURGENT.
“‘Mission Impossible’ grows fangs and claws!
For lynx werecat Pawlina Katczynski and her loved ones, meeting their isolated Forest Brethren cousins in eastern Poland was both liberating and terrifying.
Struggling, exploited werecat lineages suddenly have options for a new future, bringing the scattered clans together then dispersing them in seed groups for new colonies out in the human world.
But every power-hungry human dictator and criminal league races to capture and use the youngest werecats, for new armies of super-soldiers and assassins.
Pawly’s mother is dying of the uncontrolled backlash from denying a werecat’s innate killing rage for too long, and only an experimental treatment might save her. The machinery and formulas to do it must be stolen back from scheming North Korean enemies.
Those same formulas could save all the werecats.
Friends in high US military places give the Katczynski clan just enough plausible deniability to pull it off, before another disaster strikes: scheming North Korean General Oh abducts Pawly’s young female tiger werecat cousin Stuie.
On a desperate, devious sortie to a fortified North Korean resort to rescue Stuie (Nastusia, meaning ‘Stronger Than Death’), Pawly learns the truth of Stuie’s parentage, and how that changes everything Pawly thought she knew about her extended family.
In sacrifice, redemption, and triumph, the werecats prove their courage and independence. Once the cure for their mindless berserker Affliction goes (quietly) public, the werecats become useless as weapons of mass destruction for the despots and criminals who wanted them.
They can move among humanity.
Without the Affliction’s twin curses of murderous rage or terminal illness, they can fall in love with humans.
They can finally *live*.”
***
Mark is a friend. I’ve followed this story for thirteen years: its highs, lows, joys, and failures, as several small presses didn’t quite understand it enough to bring it properly to life.
This new chapter of Engels ‘Werecats’ series is tightly written and well-plotted, with searing visuals and an amped-up pace. All the interwoven threads from the first two books? Neatly slammed into a conclusion that’s fun and deeply satisfying to read.
No handholding of readers here! Instead, this series trusts our observational and contextual skills to spot the subtle but vital shifts in POV that hallmark several characters’ arcs of self-discovery and redemption. Little details can be be big clues. Don’t skip pages.
I called it ‘military thriller furpunk’ when I first read it, and I stand by that.
***
Switching from my usual Pawly sketches, here’s a version of her adversary Hana (no relation). Base sketch from Nightcafe AI, but heavily worked on by me in Painter 22’s digital artist airbrushes and Sargent oils.
Thank you for the review! And thank you so much for your camaraderie and support through the years. It has meant a lot to me, and helped make this moment possible.