Nadya: The Wolf Chronicles [Paperback]

Pat Murphy (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC; First Printing edition (1996)
• ASIN: B000OTTAM6
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book! Highly Recommended!, November 21, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Nadya (Wolf Chronicles) (Paperback)

Nadya is an action adventure book with a strong woman at its center. It's also a historical romance, set in the Old West. Oh, and it's also a werewolf tale. Nadya has it all, and Pat Murphy is a wonderful writer. The characters are people you want to know, the action is exciting, and a whole new world opens up with every chapter. An all around good read.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The moon outshines the brightest of stars., March 20, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Nadya: The Wolf Chronicles (Hardcover)

Sometimes in our lives there comes along a book so enticing, that all others pale in comparison. Nadya is woman, wolf, truly wilderness incarnate; Pat Murphy invites us to explore a world far beyond our everyday experiences. In this book, we have the epic tale of a woman's struggles to find acceptance as she faces deception, betrayal and rejection. A wolf by the full moon she runs free of the toils she encounters as a human, but even the wolf has hardships it must face.

Pat Murphy takes the reader on a journey rich in detail, strong in emotion, and often biting in its satire of American society. Nadya's journey becomes our own as we travel not across the land, but across the mind, exploring her innermost beliefs, fears, hopes, and dreams. Through Murphy's extraordinary book, the reader is given the chance to experience a life free from the constraints of society and walk away with a piece of the wilderness, a piece of the wolf, in their own hearts.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A plot! A plot! My kingdom for a plot!, September 9, 1997

By 

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This review is from: Nadya (Wolf Chronicles) (Paperback)

Pat Murphy has been on my auto-buy list ever since her wonderful novel, _The City, Not Long After_. I picked up _Nadya_ mostly on my feelings about her as a writer and not so much for the werewolf angle.

The book follows Nadya, a werewolf during her life in the late 1800's, from her birth in the Midwest to her trek across country to California and settling in the Pacific Northwest. A variety of characters come and go, but very little plot is developed- in many ways it's more of a travelog than a novel. Each part (Growing up, travel, and life in the Northwest) is basically self contained, without any carryovers from bit to bit, so you end up feeling like the book is a series of short stories.

Worse, it's a series of short stories with the same, almost nonexistant plot. Nadya meets evil people who don't like wolves and good people who do, and survives despite the bad people. The third time around is just dull and predictable- you know as soon as she finds happiness with good people who like wolves, shortly evil people who don't will move nearby.

The book would be far more interesting if the evil characters were better written. Each is stamped from a mold: Evil people don't like wolves, are racists who want to kill Indians, treat women badly and log forests. None is the least bit sympathetic- we're given not a single redeeming quality in the vast majority. (At least the preacher in the first section is a bit better written.) The good guys are stamped from the mirror of the mold: each loves wolves, lives in harmony with nature, accepts all races and treats women as equals. After being hammered over the head with the same stereotypes again and again, you simply stop caring about the characters.

I hope that this book is just an abberation: Murphy can (and has) written far better.