Book Review: Johnny Lycan & the Anubis Disk

Johnny Lycan & the Anubis Disk. Wayne Turmel, Black Rose Writing, 18 November 2020, Paperback and eBook, 227 pages.

Reviewed by Terry Needham.

In the end, the author reveals in his Acknowledgements that he wrote this story about a werewolf due to influence from his youth. When he was thirteen years old, he babysat his cousins on Friday nights. He was allowed to stay up late and watch KIRO Count on Channel 7 out of Seattle. When he watched Oliver Reed in the Curse of the Werewolf, the influence stuck tight, and his lifelong fascination with werewolves took root deep within him. This wonderful and entertaining book is the outcome of that fascination. For that, after reading this book, I am grateful.

The author succeeds and delivers a great tale of adventure, with authentic and complex characters living in a series of unpredictable events. The lead character is Johnny Lycan, a young man born in Romania, was adopted to live in the USA. Early in his life, he gradually becomes aware that he is “special”—as in a werewolf. Yet, true to his better “human” nature, he resists. He seeks to control the werewolf within even as the lunar cycle comes to a full moon each month and must yield to his fierce and fearsome werewolf nature. Thus, the reader is invited to admire, respect, and even cheer for Johnny as he is driven through a steady flow of challenges and violent encounters, living at the edge of survival.

The story is full of interesting, eccentric, and authentic feeling characters that are each skillfully rendered. The author delivers a steady flow of the occult, mystery, thrills, laughs, pathos, and plot twists which keeps the reader turning pages. The only way this book could be better is if there were more to the story, as in a sequel. Thus, we have a delightful and entertaining story that is destined to be a great success. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.