Red Riding Hood by Sarah Blakley-Cartwright

Title: Red Riding Hood

Author: Sarah Blakley-Cartwright

Published: January 25, 2011

Pages: 329/Paperback

Source: My personal library

Challenge:  2011 Debut Author Challenge 

Summary: The body of a young girl is discovered in a field of wheat. Her flesh mutilated by telltale claw marks. The Wolf has broken the peace. 

When Valerie learns that her sister has been killed by the legendary creature, she finds herself at the center of a dark mystery, one that has plagued her village for generations. It is revealed that the werewolf lives among them, and everyone in the village immediately becomes a suspect. Could her secret love Peter be behind the attacks on her town? Is it her betrothed, Henry? Or someone even closer to her? 

As the men in the village hunt for the beast, Valerie turns to her grandmother for help. She gives Valerie a handmade red riding cloak, and guides her through the web of lies and deception that has held her town together for so long. Will Valerie discover the werewolf's identity before the town is ripped apart?

This is a dangerous new vision of a classic fairy tale, the happy ending could be hard to find.

Review: This book wasn't bad, but it didn't wow me either. It definitely wasn't what I was expecting.

I thought (for some reason) that Valerie actually went into the woods and fought with the Wolf. Don't ask me why, but I got confused and that's what I thought.* The plot itself was interesting. I liked the mystery about who was the Wolf and the action/fighting scenes. 

I felt that the characters were a bit lacking though. I didn't get any connection from anyone other than Valerie and the third person point of view was hard to follow. Because it was third person the narration would change who it was following in the middle of paragraphs. 

Also, the "love" between Valerie and Peter was not very clear. I could tell that they were in love, I just didn't know why. 

Cartwright did a great job of leaving her readers in suspense. I had my guesses  as to who the Wolf was, but at this point every one is a suspect to me. The ending was definitely a cliff hanger, but thankfully the final chapter is released in just under a month. So not that long to wait. 

This was a good book, but nothing phenomenal. I would suggest reading it before seeing the movie though, just because that's how I roll. 

*The entire time I was reading this book all I could think of was that movie The Village by M. Night Shyamalan