When I heard that Rachel Bailey's novel Dyre: By Moon's Light was urban fantasy about lesbian werewolves, I jumped at the chance to read it.
The best thing about this book is the voice it's written in. The language is smooth and vivid, as is the protagonist's personality. Jennifer "Des" Desiderio is a young, impulsive werewolf with an important duty: serving as the protector and bodyguard of the most important werewolf, the leader of all the werewolf packs in North America, called the Dyre.
But her irresponsible nature means she fails to protect the Dyre when he most needs her protection, and she fails to stop an assassin from finding and attacking him. Dying from his wounds, he bites a young human named Ruby, passing on his Dyrehood to her before having a chance to reveal his true nature.
It falls to Des to protect and guard Ruby as she falls ill from the bite -- and to explain to her not only that werewolves exist, but that she is destined to become their queen. This is a pretty conundrum for Des, who fights fiercely but who continues to struggle against her impulsive nature and the destructive nature of the wolf within her. And an amusing conundrum for Ruby, whose response to learning she's a werewolf is "I fucking hate dogs!"
Des finds herself unsure if her growing feelings for her charge are a werewolf's natural feelings of loyalty toward her Dyre, her own need to fulfill her former Dyre's charge, or real attraction. Des is a memorable and interesting character, with a fiercely loyal nature and enough flaws to keep her vivid and interesting.
The worldbuilding is suggestive as well, with plenty of clever little details. Des thinks of humans pejoratively as "Humes," and while she's a scrappy, streety person who fights fiercely as a wolf, she also becomes a cute, playful puppy around her new Dyre. Those sweet touches keep the story light despite its dark bits. A few mysteries linger after the book ends -- like a werewolf from a European pack fearing that Des is a "rabid pup" and wondering if other American werewolves are. It left me curious: are the American werewolves ill, or are they just culturally different from Old World packs?
That leads me to the main flaws of the book. Details of werewolf packs' politics and intrigues hit the reader all at once in later chapters, just as Ruby is struggling to understand her new nature and role. It might be somewhat realistic -- she's just recovered from her illness and has a lot to learn quickly -- but it confused me as a reader and made it difficult to invest myself as deeply in the new characters as I did in Des and Ruby and the fallen Dyre, George.
Because of this, when an attack presented the first major threat to Ruby's rule, I felt a bit less worried than I should have. I hope that future novels in the series have more consistent pacing, so I can feel as invested throughout.
I also felt that the terminology could sometimes get heavy. I already knew that "loup-garou" means "werewolf," so I didn't have trouble with the werewolves calling themselves "Loups" and "Garoul," and while I was a little confused by "Hume" I figured out quickly that it meant "human." But I can imagine that a reader less familiar with these terms might get a little lost in them.
All in all, though, I found the novel a fun and exciting read, with a natural voice and characters who blended the familiar and the fantastic in an interesting way that kept me invested. The cast of characters is also quite diverse. Both Des and Ruby are women of color, and several other characters of color figure prominently in the story.
And did I mention just how much of it's wickedly funny?
If lesbian (and bisexual! Yay!) werewolves sound like fun to you, go ahead and give this one a read.
