Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey

From the Publisher

Lushly written with rich and vivid characters, SANTA OLIVIA is Jacqueline Carey's take on comic book superheroes and the classic werewolf myth.

Loup Garron was born and raised in Santa Olivia, an isolated, disenfranchised town next to a US military base inside a DMZ buffer zone between Texas and Mexico. A fugitive "Wolf-Man" who had a love affair with a local woman, Loup's father was one of a group of men genetically-manipulated and used by the US government as a weapon. The "Wolf-Men" were engineered to have superhuman strength, speed, sensory capability, stamina, and a total lack of fear, and Loup, named for and sharing her father's wolf-like qualities, is marked as an outsider.

After her mother dies, Loup goes to live among the misfit orphans at the parish church, where they seethe from the injustices visited upon the locals by the soldiers. Eventually, the orphans find an outlet for their frustrations: They form a vigilante group to support Loup Garron who, costumed as their patron saint, Santa Olivia, uses her special abilities to avenge the town.

Aware that she could lose her freedom, and possibly her life, Loup is determined to fight to redress the wrongs her community has suffered. And like the reincarnation of their patron saint, she will bring hope to all of Santa Olivia.

Publishers Weekly

Departing from epic fantasy (Kushiel's Dart, etc.), Carey sets this powerful near-future tale in Outpost 12, a small town trapped in a "buffer zone" shielding Texas from pandemic-stricken Mexico. Two half-siblings chafing under General Argyle's military rule make very different plans to beat the status quo. Tom, the son of a soldier, lives at the gym, where he trains in boxing and hopes to win his freedom from the town by defeating the general's boxing champion. Loup, who has inherited her escaped father's oddly engineered genes, joins a group of church wards called the Santitos, a tight gang of vigilantes who masquerade as the local saint, Santa Olivia. Carey's fans will enjoy meeting another strong, fearless heroine with special powers, while new readers will appreciate the tight focus that intensifies the depth of character and emotion. (June)

Karen Kleckner Keefe - Library Journal

In an indeterminate future, the border town of Santa Olivia, TX, has become Outpost Number 12, occupied by the U.S. Army. Residents rely on soldiers for commerce and, in the case of Carmen Garron, companionship. Carmen has a child with a rogue soldier, who claims to be the result of genetic experiments breeding humans with wolves to create preternatural fighters. Their daughter, Loup, inherits her father's animal reflexes and superhuman strength. When Carmen dies, Loup moves to the church's orphanage and puts her strengths to work as she and a ragtag group of orphans impersonate an avenging saint, Santa Olivia, and pull vigilante pranks around town. Though Loup eventually evolves into an appealing young protagonist, Carey's latest lacks the well-developed sweep and sense of place of her popular "Kushiel's Legacy" series. For larger libraries.

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