Synopsis

There are two things Ana Sartori knows for certain. She can’t shapeshift into a wolf like her father or his pack. And, despite her being a latent, little more than human, he loves her despite her faults. She’s never going to be an alpha like him, but she can still hold her own in a fight. Not that her life is violent. He makes sure of that. Aside from occasionally wrestling pets into a headlock when it’s time to trim their nails at Gwinnett Street Groomers, Ana leads a simple life.

At least that was the case until someone broke into her pet resort and spa, leaving a mystery dog behind in one of the bougie boarding suites. Not to mention there’s a vampire hiding in the potting shed. A very tall, very handsome vampire. He even smells nice, minus the blood drenching his clothes.

Ana could handle those things, probably, but now there’s a new alpha determined to claim the town—and Ana—as his territory. Either she stands and fights for her home, or she runs to her father with her (metaphorical) tail tucked between her legs. Life is a lot of things, but for Ana, simple isn’t one of them anymore.

(via Amazon)

Review

This book is another example of something written by a New York Times Bestseller in which I am questioning the reasoning behind the high reviews. While this book is hardly bad, I would not go so far as to giving it 5 or even 4 stars.

The writing was a miss for me unfortunately. This book reads like a young adult novel. Meaning, the adult characters feel as though they are one-dimensional and a bit immature. The most interesting characters in the story are the “vampire” figure and his grandma, and you barely get any interactions with them.

The first 50-60 percent of the book feels as though nothing really happens of any consequence, even though the mysterious dog and the ‘vampire’ show up pretty early on. These occurrences take a bit longer than expected to feel important to the plot, if that makes sense. There is a bit of a plot twist that was quite life changing to Ana and the way she reacts to the news, again felt very unrealistic and too passive for me to honestly care too much.

Being a short book already, the pacing felt forced, to the point where the characters felt as though they were acting in a play, in which they had the script. The interactions and reactions felt surface level and the deeper relationships felt conditional.

The romance aspect of the story is barely there. Again, by the time Ana gets any time in with the male love interest, the book is over. While I do not mind cliff hangers, the way this one was handled, honestly did not make me feel too interested in reading the next one. There is simply not enough intrigue for me to desire to keep reading the series.

If you enjoy reading short books with some supernatural creatures having a turf war, then by all means, give this one a try.