Nightshade

Cremer's debut brings mystery and passion to a journey of self-determination. Calla was raised chaste and pure, destined to unite with high school heartbreaker Ren on their 18th birthday and become the alphas of a shape-shifting wolf pack. She has never questioned the authority the powerful Keepers hold over her kind until she encounters a human hiker and breaks the rules to save his life. Shay was almost convinced the wolf-girl who rescued him was a dream until he meets her at his new school. Pursuing his attraction to Calla, Shay also wants to know what the Keepers are protecting and why he seems to be linked to a prophecy. Drawn to both Ren and Shay, Calla is torn: fulfill the role she was born to and deny herself freedom of choice, or choose her own path and abandon everything and everyone she knows? Good and evil are simply portrayed as Calla sheds her naïveté and learns to see past her expectations. Cremer creates a sense of urgency as the pace accelerates, though the well-constructed plot carries readers along to a cliffhanger. Ages 14–up. (Oct.)