Nope. Nope. Nopenopenopenopenopenope. I can’t think of a better way to tell you all about this book. It’s just… bad. And not entertaining bad, or annoyingly bad, or even stupidly misogynistic bad. It’s just… bad. The characters are trite. The writing is bland and full of telling not showing. The plot is rote and any ‘surprises’ are telegraphed from page one. The book also contains one of my pet peeves in novels about shape shifting humans where human physiology is assumed to be the same as animal physiology. At least it was a fast read.
The plot is very basic. Ana Dugan is a single mother in a small town, she enjoys long walks to and from work, perusing the local flea market, and avoiding her overly protective grandfather. One night, on her way home, a large ‘dog’ with bright blue eyes and grey hair around the ears attacks her. You know a dog described as though he were a blue-eyed human is greying around the temples. NEVER MIND THAT DOGS AND WOLVES DON’T GO GREY LIKE THAT. UGH. Seriously, have I mentioned this pet peeve before? If a human is just starting to grey around the temples and you want to indicate that with an animal, please look at where animals start to go grey. In the case of dogs, and presumably wolves, they would have bits of grey in their muzzles. This drives me crazy. However, it does nicely telegraph exactly who our villain is. So yes, this is a bad wolf. For reasons that are info-dumped on us later, the wolf decides that he is going to stalk Ana to make her his mate. Oh, and Ana is just coincidentally a werewolf too. Her family has lived in this small town for generations, and they’re a pack and thus the source of many urban legends about the town. There’s a thrown in romance with another character, who of course comes with his own baggage.
The book is badly in need of a good editor. There were several misused words and repeated scene snippets throughout the book in addition to the need for someone to tighten up the writing and plot.
I imagine this book came on my radar during one of my searches for more werewolf fiction, boy do I wish I’d been a bit more discerning before I picked it up.
