WOLF QUEEN

Loose ends are tied up with almost painful tidiness in Lee’s (Wolf Star, 2001, etc.) third entry in the series. After commandeering the Star to return her to the nomadic Hulta and their leader, her beloved Argul, Claidi is crushed by the tribe’s rejection, blaming her for the brokenhearted Argul’s abdication. Determined to set things right, Claidi tracks Argul to the frozen north, pursued in turn by the sinister Jelly, an apparent agent of Wolf Tower. But Argul, when found, spurns Claidi coldly, and beats Jelly senseless; Claidi and Jelly are carried off by the Lady Winter Raven to the icy fastness of Raven Tower, Wolf Tower’s rival. There, Claidi receives a royal welcome—and finally faces the mother who abandoned her. Yet nobody in this convoluted plot turns out to be who they seem, and it takes all of Claidi’s irrepressible independence to sort through the layers of subterfuge and claim her own destiny. Although most of the wonder here comes from Lee’s mysteriously evocative settings, Claidi remains a feisty, irreverent heroine, and her diary charms with its cheeky tone. But while racing through the episodic plot, Lee barely sketches in the remaining characters, and her efforts to wrap up the dangling threads of Claidi’s melodramatic adventures render this volume incomprehensible to new readers. Even with the clumsy chunks of exposition plopped at the end, the nature of Claidi’s world is still muddled, and her future unclear. Still, this lightweight confection provides some essential closure. (Fiction. 11-13)