Who’s afraid of the big, bad werewolf?
On the fog-shrouded cobblestone streets of gaslamp London, Agent Clemeny Louvel is the most feared werewolf hunter. Every supernatural creature in Her Majesty’s realm knows the Red Cape Society’s relentless operative dubbed “Little Red.” When the city’s most illustrious alchemists mysteriously disappear, Clemeny is assigned to the case.
To help her get the problem in hand, Queen Victoria appoints Clemeny a temporary partner, Sir Richard Lionheart, a werewolf with a knightly history and a tendency to be far too flirtatious for either of their good.
Can Clemeny trust him to help her chase down the monsters they’re hunting?
Wolves and Daggers is a retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale set in Victorian England with a dark academia, gothic, and steampunk aesthetic.

Melanie Karsak’s ‘Hauntings And Humbug – a Steampunk Christmas Carol’ was one of my favourite Christmas read last year so, when I needed a re-telling of a Hans Christian Anderson story for this year’s Halloween Bingo, ‘Wolves And Daggers – a Red Ridinghood Retelling’ seemed like the perfect choice. Better yet, it was the first book in a series so if I liked it, I’d have a new series to follow.

It got off to a good start, dropping me immediately into fast-paced action in a Steampunk, werewolf-infested alternative Victorian London. There was a strong gothic vibe and some fun trope-twisting. I loved that our red-caped heroine, Clemeny Louvel, is not an innocent girl being preyed on by a cunning wolf but an agent of the Queen, charged with policing London’s werewolves. Her name made me smile. It is a real French surname. It also means wolf, which was what made me smile.

Even from the beginning, the writing felt a bit first-draftish. For example, the word ‘raced’ was used several times in a couple of paragraphs in the first action scene. I was willing to live with that kind of clumsiness at first because the story was pulling me in.

As time went by I became more and more distracted by the lazy use of language. Louvel sounded American rather than English or French. She measured in city blocks. No Londoner would do that. London doesn’t have blocks. She uses meaningless English words, talking about an airship ‘debarking’ rather than departing. She doesn’t understand London’s geography, talking about her airship turning towards Buckingham when she’s been summoned by the Queen. There is no Buckingham in London, The Palace bears the name Buckingham because it was formerly owned by the Duke of Buckingham who called it Buckingham House.

Irritating as that was, there was a bigger disappointment ahead. The plot never made it beyond a cartoon level. There were some clever ideas and spectacular situations but they never came together into something tense and intriguing. Louvel didn’t develop as a character. To me she felt flat and childish. Finally, the plot fizzled into something close to a cliffhanger except without the tension.

I won’t be continuing with the series.

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