Wildling Rider by Helena Maeve

Wildling Rider
by Helena Maeve
Pages: Unknown
Date: November 9 2016
Publisher: Less than Three
Series: None

Review
Rating: 3.25
Read: November 1 2016

*I received this book from NetGalley and Less than Three in return for a fair review.*

Four reasons why I wanted to read this story. 1) Read this author before in a short story collection and liked what I saw (to the score of 4.65); 2) was curious about seeing this author in longer form; 3) had been interested in reading some form of biker story for a while now, and the ones I’d circled in the past seemed to have too much of a ‘male jackass’ vibe drifting off the pages; 4) it’s a lesbian story set in Scotland with bikers, werewolves and a mystery, what more could I ask for?

Oh, I don’t know, maybe a character who I wouldn’t want to strangle with my bare hands might have been nice. From beginning to end, Abigail – the main character (and only POV), annoyed the hell out of me. Judgmental, nosey, bitchy, stubborn, a little too close to the ‘airhead’ her ex called her at one point (though she, the ex, had also included things that implied bubbly – Abigail was far from bubbly/happy go lucky/pleasant to be around. Far.) The little too close has to do with observable intelligence levels. Which isn’t exactly horrible in and of itself for a character – I mean for a character to be somewhat dim – might even make an interesting book. Here it just annoyed me.

I need to interject one thing here though, somewhat out of order – you know that ‘too stupid to live’ concept that pops up in fiction? TSTL? I do not believe I’ve ever seen a character described that way who wasn’t female, but let’s not dwell on that – point being that the character is, as the words suggest – way too stupid to live, yet they do. Well, to be fair to this character here – Abigail – while there were a few moments that edged in that direction, she never tipped that way completely. No, she kept getting injured, hurt, etc., mostly through the fault of others and not because of her own stupidity. Either she was with someone who would normally be able to protect her, but couldn't, or she got hurt after that someone abandoned them (like, what the heck was up with her ex-girlfriend basically charging off and abandoning her in the woods? Right, sorry, getting ahead of myself there). Just mean to point out that my ‘lacking in certain level of intelligence’ (a phrase I never used until now) doesn’t mean that she’s ‘too stupid to live’ stereotype character.

Story started off similarly to that other story I’ve read by Maeve – as in right in the middle of the story. I think I used the word ‘story’ too much in the previous sentence, you’d think I could have come up with a different word, at some point, other than story. Hehe. *shakes self* Right, sorry. Point – previous story I had read was in Less than Dead and started off with a man battling hoards of zombies while listening to classical music (and telling his man-servant to change the song every once in a while). Never did learn exactly what was going on, but you don’t really need to in a zombie story. That didn’t really work this time around, unfortunately. Started off annoyed that I didn’t know what was going on, and didn’t get much better (the annoyance, I figured out what was going on – most of it – before the end of the story).

Right, so, this is set in Scotland. A woman is poking her nose into ‘things’ and asking questions people do not wish to answer (interject here – near the beginning Abigail says something like ‘—my good old RP accent was, for the first time in my life, a source of derision.’ RP accent? What the bloody hell is an RP accent? It’s not a posh accent, because she made fun of/mocked Georgia for having that. So. RP. “Received Pronunciation, often abbreviated to RP, is an accent of spoken English. Unlike other UK accents, it’s identified not so much with a particular region as with a particular social group, although it has connections with the accent of Southern England. RP is associated with educated speakers and formal speech”. So says Google. And, what? Seriously? The first time in her life a source of derision? Guess my vague impression that I had picked up along the way that ‘experts’ are derided in England at the moment was just that, an impression, a wrong one at that (ah, but does an expert specifically have an RP accent? Just because there is that ‘associated with educated speakers and formal speech’ part? *shrugs. No idea. Shesh this is a long aside. I do not even remember what paragraph I am in now.)

*pretends previous paragraph doesn’t exist*

Right, so, book is set in Scotland. A woman from London famous for making videos of fashion is poking her nose in a small village in Scotland. Apparently she heard that a woman went missing. So she took a train five hours up (I think) to look around. She admits that people go missing all the time in London. But – she just knows no one cares about this ‘Candice Sharpe’ person, and therefore she needs to go up there and look around. Except she actually knew another woman who had gone missing. And that’s the real reason she’s up there. Except that person went missing before she was born. See, confusing.

Well, there is this woman named Abigail and she’s poking around this Scottish village with her ex-girlfriend who is both a biker and a werewolf (the local biker gang are werewolves; or – the local werewolves ride motorcycles). The story is set in that type of universe. One with bikers. Also, werewolves. And vampires. And witches. And people who have been born again (not that way). Though only werewolves and those who have been reincarnated actually pop up in this specific story here.

My review is confused because I’m quite off my game at the moment. The fact that the book itself is also confusing is just a coincidence.

Characters –
Abigail - 30 something woman from London who is poking around in Scotland for a missing woman. Speaks with an RP accent. Has been described by one ex-girlfriend as being a bubbly airhead.

Kayla - Abigail’s biker ex-girlfriend who is also a werewolf and lives in the same town Abigail is wandering around in softly calling out the name ‘Candice’ to see if Candice turns up.

Candice Sharpe - a woman who has gone missing who Abigail thinks no one cares about. Is described as both a junkie and a groupie (groupie of the werewolf bikers).

Georgia - a woman Kayla claims is Candice’s friend. Though Abigail scoffs at the idea. Since Georgia is just so gosh darn posh. Too posh to be friends with trash like Candice. Or something like that (did I mention yet that Abigail is judgemental?).

Jensen - head of the Wildlings – the biker motorcycle club that Abigail’s ex-girlfriend, Kayla, is a member of.

Nettie Jensen - Jensen’s long dead mother. Knew Swedish.

Plot - English woman wanders Scotland looking for a missing Scottish woman who she doesn’t know, nor had ever heard of before that woman went missing. The town is very tight lipped and strongly suggestive to Abigail that she should make a hasty departure. Backed up by gunfire. That English woman has some connections with the people found in the town that would not normally be expected, definitely not expected if this wasn’t a fantasy. Motorcycles are ridden. Driven. On roads. On paths. Over rocks. Whereupon they flip through the air and land on riders. Much stuff occurs.

Overall - interesting story. Wish I hadn’t been somewhat confused in the beginning. And/or that I didn’t come to basically dislike 99.9% of the people involved.

Rating: 3.25

November 1 2016