Interview: "Heart of the Wolf" Author, Terry Spear

This interview was conducted by contributor, Teresa Bergen.  Ms. Bergen is the author of the novel Killing The President, and in addition to writing, transcribes and edits oral histories, paints animal portraits, makes costume devil horns, teaches yoga, and plays bass in an indie rock band.

As an avid reader, I’m always fascinated to learn of a new genre. And this one is a doozy: werewolf romance. Now the closest I ever got to werewolf romance was watching Michael Landon in I Was A Teenage Werewolf as a child. (I had quite a crush on Little Joe in the Bonanza reruns.) But I recently came across Heart of the Wolf by Terry Spear. While I still don’t expect to become a big romance novel fan, I enjoyed how Spear created a new and complicated take on the werewolf world. Unlike Landon in I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Spear’s werewolves turn into full on wolves, not just hairy humans. They live in complicated packs that go back for generations. She graciously took the time to answer my wolf world questions.

Why Oregon as a setting for werewolves?

My grandfather was one of the first doctors in Beaverton, and when I was sixteen, we moved from Florida to live in Portland where I attended Portland Community College (skipping the last years of high school to earn joint credit for high school and college) and Portland State University. I loved hiking in the Klamath Falls area, or watching the snow fall between classes at PCC, until we realized we were in the midst of a blizzard, or sledding on cardboard boxes down Mount Hood, left there for our use by previous sledders, or climbing down trails to the rocky Oregon beaches and seeing bold deer used to visitors to the area. I loved watching the skiers at Mount Hood and visiting the Timberline Lodge where a St. Bernard slept by a roaring fire. Or fishing in the many streams in the area. Oregon is magical.

Are any of your other books set in Oregon?

Heart of the Wolf is the start of the series, which received Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of the Year for mass market books in 2008, and is set mostly in Oregon. Then Destiny of the Wolf comes next, set in Colorado. But I yearned to return to Oregon, so To Tempt the Wolf, just released this past September, is set on the Oregon coast. I based it on a place where we hiked through trees, down a rugged trail to a short beach, closed off from the rest of the world by massive rocks. It seemed the perfect location for the story to take place. Legend of the White Wolf is set in Maine, February release, but the fifth book, Seduced by the Wolf, August, 2010, comes home to Portland again. Also, my vampire tale, Deadly Liaisons, coming in January, is set in Oregon.

How did you become so interested in wolves?

When I was a kid, I’d read Jack London’s Call of the Wild and White Fang and loved how he created his tales about wolves, which made me look at them in a more humanistic way, rather than as I did from the standpoint of old fairy tales such as The Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood.

How much of your work is established werewolf lore, and how much have you invented?

I’ve kept some of the ideas about werewolves—silver can kill, the moon does have an effect on them, and a bite from a werewolf can change a human into one of the werewolf kind. But in my stories, the werewolves are often born as such. They can change during any phase of the moon, but the new moon. Except for royals. They have very few human roots diluting their werewolf roots, which enables them to be able to change at will. My werewolves have a human conscience when in wolf form, in other words, they don’t forget who they are once they shape shift into a wolf form like they do in so many werewolf horror stories. And when they’re in their human form, they still have their wolf instincts, heightened sense of smell, sight, hearing. They also believe in mating for life, and are protective and loyal to their packs. In my werewolf culture, the wolves are based on real wolves, so there are different species, the red and the gray. I do introduce Arctic wolves (werewolves) in Legend of the White Wolf, but Arctic wolves are actually a subspecies of gray wolves. In my stories, werewolves are not monsters as they change form. They look just like real wolves and have the same genetics in wolf form.

How did you research wolves?

Books, Internet resources, educational films about wolf behavior.

The werewolves seem to follow archaic gender roles – e.g. male in charge, female must lead by wiles, pretending to defer. And especially the fighting over a female, with the victor winning her whether she likes it or not, like in a fairy tale. What motivated this decision in your wolf world?

Wolves do establish hierarchies, just like many species. I read once where the alpha male is in charge, except when the female has her litter, then she is truly in charge. This is not to say that a female alpha can’t rule a pack, and it is the case when she’s lost her mate. There are exceptions to every rule also. Normally, wolves mate for life, but there was a case of an alpha male who had two mates at the same time. Each of my stories shows the same werewolf world, but different aspects of it. In Destiny of the Wolf, the town is run by a pack of werewolves, instead of the usual blending in of wolves with a human population. In To Tempt the Wolf, the hero has lost his home, his sister, his pack and his memories, yet he still has that inherent ability to lead and to protect. I do believe in fairy tales—that’s the stuff romance is made of. But in the old fairy tales, the heroine was always waiting for the prince to save her. In most of my stories, the damsel in distress is ready to defend those who need protection every bit as much as the “knight in shining armor” is.

There’s a lot of sex scenes in Heart of the Wolf, but they all take place in human form. Why don’t we see any wolf sex?

:) I do talk about it in Seduced by the Wolf—about how in nature, wolves behave, and how in captivity the hierarchy can be askew. Great question though. I’m not sure how fans or my editor would like it, although I sure can ask! It’ll make for a fun question in any event.

What are biggest similarities and contrasts between wolves and people?

Wolves sense of smell and sight and hearing are greater than people’s. And they can see better at night than we can. They mate for life for the most part. Like many people, they love to play, they’re curious, and they build teamwork and rely on cooperation between pack members. Like most people, wolves are protective of their families. Wolves are extremely expressive animals. Just like humans. I was writing that my character raised his brows as a wolf and my critique partner asked if this was possible. Absolutely. They have brows and they raise or lower them like we do.

Have you done any readings in Oregon? Any future plans to visit?

I haven’t done any readings in Oregon, although I’d love to. I’d love to return to Portland and the surrounding areas. To see the beaches again and visit Timberline Lodge, the Oregon Zoo, the Botanical Gardens, and all the other wondrous sites Oregon has to offer. It truly is a bit of heaven. And my werewolves are right at home there! But for now, I don’t have anything scheduled to attend there.