Author's Comments
Cry Wolf is the first novel in the Alpha and Omega series. The series itself is set in the same world as the Mercy Thompson series and is loosely connected. The first story in this series was the novella from On the Prowl, "Alpha and Omega". The protagonists of the Alpha and Omega books are Samuel's brother Charles and his newly acquired mate Anna.
Sometimes, when I'm writing, a character pops up, someone who is just supposed to have a walk-on part . . . and, for some reason, they catch my attention. When I brought Charles on stage in Moon Called I needed someone to fill out the world a bit. I didn't want Samuel to be an only child (all of Bran's attention on just one son would be kind of scarey) and I needed people to make Aspen Creek feel like a real place. But as I thought about him . . .he caught my interest. What was it like to be a Native American and watch your mother's culture largely die out when you knew that you could not? What insights would immortality give you on racism? And . . . I liked him. There were a hundred fascinating questions that demanded answers -- and I already had more than enough characters to fill a 100,000 word novel. So I promised myself a chance to go play with him later -- and I was thinking maybe later in the series. Then my editor asked me to write a novella set in Mercy's world. I was already working on a novel but I didn't know where it would end, so I couldn't set the novella later. And setting it earlier . . . I just didn't have a good feeling about it. But I had Charles. . .
When I told Ann (my editor) that I wanted to write the story about Charles . . . she was pretty surprised because she hadn't been in my head when I first met him. But she gave me the go-ahead and when she read the story she really liked it. Enough to see if I could write a series about Charles. So, some characters jump on stage and fight to take over the novel. I think it says something about Charles that he demanded his own series! I hope you enjoy he and Anna as much as I did.
