Thursday, 26 June 2014

Beyond The TARDIS The Wolfstone Curse Review by DJ Forrest


Written by Justin Richards
ISBN: 978-1-84877-551-0
Published by Templar Publishing

Operation Velvet Claw

‘It’s what you don’t know that kills you.  But I do know this; the next 24 hours could change the course of the war.
   Am I exaggerating?  I certainly feel like I have the whole future of the world in my hands.  Not just me of course – Acer is in charge.  And Boffin’s the man who first discovered the terrible secrets of Castle Wolfenburg......’

The story begins during the Second World War and the evil scientific experiments by the Nazi’s in the fortress known as Castle Wolfenburg.  From there the story leaps into present day and takes up the lives of Peter, a bored teenager up from the city with his dad, discovering that he’s completely cut off from his Facebook addiction and his friends, and helping on an archaeological dig in the Cotswolds.  There he meets David Forrest, son of the wealthy businessman, Sebastian Forrest who is funding the dig.  The Forrest’s are an incredibly wealthy and very connected family and carry a lot of weight throughout the story, there are a lot of exciting chapters involving both David and his Dad and some very interesting discoveries about them both.  I do recall a lot of ‘Ahhhh so that’s who he is...’  as I worked my way through the novel.

In the public house which also runs a small bed and breakfast, the boys get to know Carys, the daughter of the owner, who knows a lot about the wolves in the sanctuary not far from the pub, and knows of the legends of the land, about the Manor, and the flowers that grow only in this one place in the Cotswolds, and about the legend of the werewolves.

There are many characters within the story that are all linked in some small way.  The manor itself conjures up an image in the mind of many an old manor I’ve walked around over the years, with windows with latticed glass panes that hide an abundance of secrets within.  When Peter spots a girl desperate to escape from an upstairs room, he returns a day too late and discovers claw marks on the bare floorboards, and a teddy ripped to shreds, with his mind racing at all possibilities, he is spooked by something inside the manor, and indeed so was I, given that I read this chapter late one night!!!

Justin Richards is one of my favourite writers of fiction, having read and loved his novel ‘Deviant Strain’ involving Captain Jack Harkness with the 9th Doctor and Rose Tyler, I again found the same delights within this novel.  Ok not with the Doctor or Captain Jack, or indeed Rose Tyler, but the level of intrigue, lots of running, and one hell of an imagination, and many ‘spooked’ moments through the story.  I’d like to note here, that if you are going to read this at night, that you make sure you don’t have a dog in the room, one that barks at anything, and always barks at that particular moment when one of the leading characters is about to come pretty close to a snappy snarly werewolf!!!

The story never dips once, there aren’t any moments when you want to skip a few pages because the explanations are a little too long winded, every part of the novel, every piece of detail is perfect.  This novel is also enhanced with ‘augmented reality technology’.  You have to download the free Wolfstone app to your smart phone to see the hidden content. 

Published by Templar, the paperback cover has a strange feel to it, not sticky but not smooth, yet despite this, it’s one heck of a ride and ‘if death were an animal, she WOULD be a wolf.’

5/5





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