First of all, I finished this book in the wee hours of the morning and I will say right now that it was worth losing sleep. The only problem was getting to the final page and saying, wait, what? It can't end here! I had convinced myself that this was it for the characters and hated to think that I would not learn more about them. Of course, I was too tired, it was pushing 4 am and I should have read a bit longer into the info about the author's upcoming book which said... Part two is coming.So, if it is anything like the first, it will be a real page turner.
I will not spoil the story but I will look at the three main characters and a few others below. I think that most readers will be either Team Callum or Team Blake -- hard to choose for many but me, not so much.
First of all, the book is very well-paced, well-written with just the right amount of plot twists that keep the reader moving to the next page and chapter (which is why I was up all night reading the book!) The writer really is excellent and kudos to her excellent portrayal of the setting and character. Great world building and a lot of suspense, with some build up to will-they-won't-they but nothing overt until well past the 50% point of the book. Which was good. It built tension because ultimately, the story is not about that but about a woman's bid for freedom.
Aurora (FMC) is manipulated, used, mentally abused, and made to be a pawn for her father who is about to give her to a vile man he needs for border control and as an ally. The sad thing is that throughout history, this has been done to countless young women who were used and abused by spouses and who were forced to present a blandly smiling face to the world and so we really feel for this young woman's potential fate. Aurora, though, is looking for an out; She is very clever and intelligent and she refuses to docilely go to her fate with a terrible man.
Enter an Alpha wolf battling for his life in an arena and through some excellent machinations and much bravery on her part, Callum (MMC) makes his getaway. With Aurora.
Callum is the quintessential nice guy. Handsome and broad of shoulder, kind, noble of purpose and with a good heart, he cares for the intelligent and brave heroine, helps her out of some pretty sticky situations, and saves the day several times. This is where the cheering throngs of readers say that they are Team Callum as they wave an emerald green flag the color of werewolf Callum's eyes.
But there is also Blake, a mysterious dark horse character whose convoluted manipulations of everyone around him for his own purposes is brilliant. Handsome and intense, and seemingly very callous, he has everyone dancing to his tune without them even knowing it. Blake falls squarely into the "morally grey character and possible bad guy" slot but frankly, he dominates this position to the point that I found myself rooting for him at every turn. Sometimes those bad guys are infinitely more interesting than the great noble-hearted guys. And this is where readers who like their other MMCs to be mysterious, brilliant and morally grey leap to their feet waving their black flags screaming "Team Blake!"
Aurora seems to be stuck in the middle between the noble-hearted Callum and the annoyingly brilliant Blake. But she's a smart young woman and she'll figure out which guy she wants in the end: noble and good but malleable Callum or the morally grey and brilliant manipulator, Blake.
Fiona the master of horse was a great character and I hope to see her in book 2. There were several others as well, and we'll see where their stories lead them. The bad people are REALLY bad and so morally reprehensible that readers will hope for their comeuppance . Enough said on that.
Really looking forward to the next one. I've never read this genre before and I'm glad I was able to find this one.
The Wolf King: A Fantasy Romance
4.5
| 4,955 ratingsPrice: 2.99
Last update: 09-06-2024