I First read this book via NetGalley in 2017 and for some reason whether I forgot to review it, or it disappeared ( as I remember writing one!), but anyway I decided to re-read the series again. And boy I am glad I did, as I forgot how much I enjoyed Nessa's journey.
well on with the review...
What I liked - I like the way that the author has created a world where 'were's' mix with natural wolves. That the storyline delves into the science of DNA manipulation and the ethics of where that could lead to.
In this book
Nessa is now used to being a 'weregirl'— running with Luc her boyfriend and fellow shifter and the wolf pack that lives in the surrounding woods.
Paravida, the corporation responsible for unethical genetic experiments on the residents of Tether, (Book 1) has done a disappearing act... Or Have they?

The book opens with a dramatic scene when Nessa returns home from a run with the pack to find her house swarming with FBI who arrest her mum Vivian, without bail for violations so serious she may be facing life in prison...
Vivian’s secret past leads Nessa to discover there is more to her own story than she ever imagined.

The Released Paravida wolves have started to breed with the natural pack, this, in turn, brings alarm to the town and the National Guard move in putting the wolves in danger.
While Luc and Nessa try to keep the wolves and town folk safe, Nessa also learns the truth of who her father is.
This book is a rollercoaster ride as Nessa tries to help her mum, the wolves, and deal with school and the gossip surrounding her mum's arrest, she finds that she has the strength and the heart to deal with insurmountable stress and still comes up fighting.
It's refreshing to read a book where the heroine doesn't need to rely on a guy to save her, she's perfectly capable of saving herself.
Nessa's relationship with her best friend is also a refreshing change for YA books. She's supportive and helps not only with the wolf issues but also helps Nessa adjust to being set adrift from all she knew.

I really enjoyed re-reading this series and I am starting Book 3 today.

I had a lot of trouble finishing this book. I opened it up but kept putting it back in my TBR pile, which is already huge. It ended up getting lost down the rabbit hole eventually because of how often I kept putting on the back-burner.

It was a decent read but it just did not capture my attention long enough for me to read through it in one or two sittings as I usually do. I had to keep going back to try and remember bits of it with how long it took to capture my attention.

A copy of the book was provided in return for an honest review.

I have always been a fan of paranormal and this sequel turned out to be just the enough awesome I needed. Loved it and looking forward to the next book!!!!

I enjoyed this book, however, I don't think it was as good as the first one. I really wanted to get to some of the secondary characters more and I wanted Nessa's focus to remain on the things that were important to her in the first book. I did like seeing Nessa and Luc together but the ended made me so sad. Thank you NetGalley for gifting me this book.

Overview

Nessa Kurland is adjusting and embracing her new life as a were girl. She is in control of her transformations and embracing her abilities and strength with the help and guidance of her boyfriend Luc, a fellow shifter. Everything appears normal now that Pavrida has gone.

After a run, Nessa returns home to her home being raided by the FBI and her mother being arrested and put in jail with no hope of bail for violations so serious she may be facing life in prison. What did Nessa’s mother, a small-town vet tech, do to threaten Homeland Security? Vivian’s secret past leads Nessa to discover there is more to her own story than she ever imagined.

The wolves in Tether are also changing, breeding and forming packs of their own that the public views as a threat. The town is in lockdown and the wolves are under a much bigger threat than Luc and Nessa realise.

Please click the link to read my personal review on Goodreads!
4/5 Stars!

A thrilling and tear-jerking read in which Nessa grows into herself a a weregirl. Once I started this book I couldn't put it down easily - darn work & housework!

This series is very entertaining, and is perfect for lovers of the paranormal - including those coming-of-age readers. I would highly recommend this series.

I was really excited to get into the book after reading Weregirl. Chimera is still a good read, but it feels like one too many things are trying to be set up in this book for the third book and it made everything feel cramped.

This story line has my utterly intrigued. I’m late with my review here because I struggled to move along with the words. I found myself skimming quite a bit and the book had several parts where it was too heavy with mundane. This is a great concept for a trilogy and I really want to read it through until the end to see where these characters end up.

With a few tweaks it could be a stellar tale.

10/10 would recommend to the teens that come into my public library. Excellent and well written young adult title.

Another great shifter story from C.D. Bell! She's done it again, and without missing a beat! It's got shifters, intrigue, and some genetic engineering/experimentation! What else could you want? Come follow the next piece in Nessa's journey to revelation.

WEREGIRL: CHIMERA
by C.D. Bell
This book is an interesting mystery including supernatural beings and genetic manipulation. The theory is sound that we can add to and alter the genetic code between two diverse animals an create hybrid animals. The supernatural idea of werewolves changing from human to wolf form on command is easily woven into the mythos of the story. Young Nessa has a lot to come to terms with. She finds out that her father is alive. She finds that her mother has more history than she knows about including in their small town. Nessa has a lot to face, and you thought being a werewolf was hard. Luc is her love. Luc has to save the natural wolves in their hometown. Genetically altered wolves are changing the human wolf dynamic. Their aggressive nature is costing the town, and they will make the wolves pay. This is a dynamic story about responsibility and human nature.

I read this last year, but with the new additions to the series I needed to refresh. Well written, I enjoyed reading this!

I love where the story is going in the second installment!
It was awesome to get to learn more about Nessa's family and background. I was a little disappointed that Chayton (sp?) didn't make an appearance in this book because I really loved his character in book one, but he *is* described as a bit elusive.
I plan to post a full review of the entire trilogy as soon as I finish Weregirl: Typhoon and will update with a link as soon as it's ready!

This second entry in the Weregirl series suffers greatly from dreaded the sophomore slump.

Gone is the fast-paced action, the plot twists and turns, the interesting character developments. This time around, the writing is boring, plain and simple. With long, drawn out passages filled with descriptions of, well, everything, the author left nothing to the readers own imagination. Every detail is spelled out, ad nauseum, with paragraph after paragraph, turning into page after page, of descriptive prose; the characters inner thoughts, the description of a scene down to the number of trees. With 60 chapters, this book could have easily been whittled down by a third.

From the first installment we already know Paravida has been conducting experiments on wolves, but they were brought to light and shut down by Nessa and her boyfriend Luc. This time around, Nessa's mother is arrested and put in jail for various crimes trumped up by Paravida in retaliation for exposing their lab. Nessa finds out who and where her father is and goes to visit him, begging for help for her mother who is slowly getting sicker and sicker while in jail. On a trip to visit him in Oregon, she comes across what seems to be a horrible experiment gone awry involving the stem cells of her younger sister, Delphine. Back in Wisconsin, all hell breaks loose and wolves (normal and altered alike) are rounded up and killed.. A few escape to an island, including boyfriend Luc. Nessa tranforms a few times to go running in the forest as a wolf. The end.

I really wanted to like this book, but sadly, it just wasn't as well written as the first one.

The WereGirl series continues with dramatic life-changing discoveries happening frequently. When Nessa gets her life turned upside down, she starts trying to get to the bottom of things and learns family secrets that rock her foundation of what she thinks she knows. A well written book.

The 2nd book in the Weregirl trilogy, Chimera, takes us back into the life of Nessa and her newfound status of werewolf in the small town of Tether. If you thought Weregirl was wild, well, Chimera kicks it up a few notches. Which is both good and bad…
In Chimera we get more background into Nessa’s mother and her estranged father. All that background could be a trilogy of its own. Chimera felt at times, slow and then suddenly fast paced, because of all the plot and twists. This book is much heavier on the science side, with more exploration into hybrids and chimeras (whether or not the science holds up is beyond me). I also really enjoyed the relationships between characters in this book and how they evolved.
One of my biggest complaints is the writing style and this may come from the fact that C.D. Bell is actually a group of six authors all writing one book. I found that sometimes Nessa will realize something important, seemingly forget it, and then remember it all over again. Which really throws off the pacing. While I am all for collaboration, this is something that should have been noted and fixed in editing.
All in all, Chimera was a decent second book to this series. I truly enjoy the “evil science corporation” side of this werewolf story and this makes it stand out over more traditional werewolf books. A lot of this book felt like set up for the third book and that made it a little less enjoyable than the first book. If you are looking for an easy read and a unique werewolf story than I would definitely recommend this series.

An update of the werewolf society and science gone wrong. Clearly geared for the YA audience. There is a young couple who feature throughout when the young female protagonist is not trying to fix her family's problems.

Nessa is becoming more accustomed to transforming into a wolf. She spends time running with her boyfriend, Luc, who shifts into a wolf as well. But Luc has been shifting longer and feels his destiny is one day to remain a wolf and not transform back. Nessa’s world is turned upside down on the day the FBI descend, search their home, and arrest her mother for crimes Nessa feels couldn’t possibly have happened. Nessa discovers there is so much more to the story than she could have imagined. She now has to learn why she was chosen to save the wolves and what is her destiny. I so loved this book and cannot wait to start the third one now!

“Chimera”, the second book in the Weregirl trilogy by C. D. Bell, was just a good as her first, if not better. There is romance, adventure, secrets revealed, tragedy, and perseverance.
Nessa Kurland is running with the pack along with her boyfriend, Luc, who is also a wolf.
Learning to control her transformations more easily and what it mean to be part of nature. What it means to just run free.
Things seem to fall apart as Nessa’s Vet-tech mother is arrested by the FBI on serious charges. Nessa will find out her mother is not who she though she was. That her wealthy father was into weird science and that he had genetically created a daughter from materials from her sister and other animals.
With so much going on you will not want to put this book down until it is finished.

Note: Some spoilers for Book One of this trilogy, Weregirl.

This is the second book of the Weregirl trilogy, featuring Nessa Kurland, a 16-year-old junior at Tether High in Michigan. Nessa lives with her single mom, Vivian, who is a vet technician; younger sister Delphine; and brother Nate, who is on the autism spectrum. Nate is seen once a week at a free clinic sponsored by Paravida, the mysterious research facility that took over the old Dutch Chemical plant.

In the first book, Nessa, a cross country runner for the track team, is hoping to get a scholarship to go to college. She decides to increase her training, and goes out at night, into the woods. She gets bitten but not seriously injured by a wolf, at least, not in a way she comprehends at first. Pretty soon the full moon reveals to her that she has become a werewolf. No one knows but her BFF Bree, and a shaman who helped her understand that the wolves chose her for a reason.

Also in the first book, Nessa had to free her brother from the evil scientists at Paravida, and she gained a boyfriend - Luc, who happens to be a werewolf as well. At the end of Book One, the Paravida wolves, bred to be hyper-aggressive, had escaped from the facility into the wild. Nessa and Luc were trying to round up the survivors and integrate them with regular wolves.

The tension in this second book begins when Nessa and Luc discover that someone is hunting the Paravida wolves. In addition, there are complications with Luc: he is not a “regular” werewolf. Rather, he is from a werewolf *family*; every generation, one of the family transforms permanently into a wolf upon reaching adulthood. He doesn’t like to talk about it because then they will not be together anymore unless Nessa tries to transform permanently as well.

Nessa tries just to focus on track season and high school. But then her mother Vivian gets arrested and taken away by Homeland Security and the FBI for alleged theft of public property. Vivian’s sister Jane comes to stay with them till they figure out what is going on. Could the evil people of Paravida have orchestrated her mom’s arrest? Maybe they were looking for the “evidence” that Nessa and her BFF Bree stole from the Paravida lab! Bree is convinced that is what is going on. The prosecution contended that it was Vivian who created mutated versions of the local wolves in order to help her commit acts of domestic terrorism. Nessa knows that is wrong. But then Nessa discovers evidence that her cash-strapped mother has a large secret bank account with regular deposits from a mysterious man: Daniel Host, President of Chimera Corp. (Chimera is the term for any organism combining the genetic material from two or more species.) What *is* going on?

Meanwhile, Vivian gets very ill in prison. Nessa doesn’t know what to do, and asks her mom about the money. Vivian refuses to tell her anything except for warning her not to contact Daniel Host. But Nessa is desperate over her mother’s declining health and calls him. He tells her he is her father. He is very wealthy, and sends a plane for her to come see him in Oregon. There, she learns many secrets about both of her parents, and sees the astonishing chimeras created at her father’s lab.

At the end of Book Two, Nessa has to confront huge changes in her life.

Discussion: Nessa is an appealing character but that appeal meets heavy obstacles with the rest of the plot. The outrageously depraved villains of Paravida are *way* over the top, as are the actions they commit. The sequences when Nessa changes back and forth between werewolf and human exhibit a huge lack of thought. Where do her clothes go when she becomes a wolf and why does she appear instantly dressed again when she changes back?

C.D. Bell is a pseudonym for a group of six female writers who collaborate on books. They don’t always coordinate their efforts perfectly however. There are mistakes that indicate some members of the group weren’t always paying attention.

Moreover, there are a number of grating grammatical errors. You would think among the six of them, someone would know the difference between “who” and “whom.” And subjunctive mood? Unknown, apparently.

Evaluation: One wishes there had been better editing and a more “realistic” plot. Even paranormal stories need to be grounded in something that seems like reality.