I have to say, I am an absolute sucker for any story involving werewolves. Just tap that shit straight into my veins. So of course, as soon as Aurora gets “kidnapped” by Callum I was all, yep, here we go.
And the story ended up being really engaging. The background is an unjust war between humans and wolves that has forced the normally clannish wolves to unite under a single war King. Aurora meets them and discovers that they’re not all the monsters she was taught. Meanwhile, the more she finds out about her fiance, the clearer it becomes that often it’s the humans who are the real monsters.
I like Callum as a love interest. As much as Aurora challenges him and as much as it frustrates him, he doesn’t seem to take it personally. Having said that, I am really intrigued by Blake. I do love me a bad boy and he’s obviously fascinated by Aurora. It seems to be a trope in romantasy that the first relationship never lasts, so I’m genuinely curious to find out how this one is handled.
I am curious to know if there are animal wolves in this universe, or if all wolves are shapeshifters.
Also… why are they Scottish? Is this a thing now, like English accents on Elves, or Scottish accents for Dwarves? How do Scottish people feel about being Werewolves now?
On second thought, it would be better than the whole leprechaun thing my people got saddled with.
The one thing I found really broke the suspension of disbelief for me was how Aurora describes herself as somebody who is skilled in the ways of court and then seeing how she completely fails to show any of that skill. When she meets James she is straight-up rude to him, and she absolutely should have known that was not the way to approach him. She also completely failed to manipulate Sebastian, which was even more unbelievable to me. She grew up in that society, she knows that being sexually aggressive would be absolutely frowned upon. She would have been much better off to act all frightened and trembling, he was exactly the kind of asshole to enjoy that.
And now we have an impending showdown between Callum and James. The relationship between them may have been fraught, but James’ actions have absolutely put a wedge between them that can’t be fixed. Maybe he didn’t realized how much Callum meant it when he professed his love for Aurora.
I am definitely going to check out the sequel. I can’t wait to find out what happens next.