I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
A Pack of Blood and Lies by Olivia Wildenstein Series: The Boulder Wolves, #1
Published by Olivia Wildenstein ISBN: 9781948463140
on March 10, 2019
Genres: Contemporary, New Adult, Paranormal, Romance, Werewolves & Shifters
Pages: 362
Read it as: eARC
Source: Netgalley
My rating:
Check it out in Goodreads
Synopsis
Three months shy of her eighteenth birthday, Ness is forced to return to Colorado. Even though it’s been six years, and the wolves of her all-male pack don’t recognize her, she recognizes them. People who shun others because of their gender are hard to forget.
Especially Liam Kolane—son of Heath, the crudest and cruelest Alpha to have ruled the Boulder Pack. Liam is as handsome as he is infuriating, as kind as he is punishing, and he makes Ness’s traitorous heart race, which isn’t good. After all, he’s a Kolane. Like father like son, right?
When Heath dies, Liam vies to become the new Alpha and no one dares challenge him.
Except Ness.
Thus begins a treacherous game.
The rules: winner takes all…including loser’s life.
I should probably start by saying I hadn’t read a full-length werewolf book in a while before this one, so I was really excited. I’ve always associated werewolf books with amazing romance stories filled with tension and action.
First impressions
Going into this book, the beginning struck me as quite lackluster. I obviously wasn’t sure what was going on, and the mundane scene that starts us off doesn’t make matters easier. My excitement for the story wobbled. Because, as a reader, at the beginning I want to be curious, but also have enough answers to keep me reading. I hope things would speed up and get more interesting as I kept turning pages.
Patience is rewarded
Soon enough, I was reading about complicated pack dynamics and quite an unfair leadership system. No matter because Ness is prepared to defy it. Well, not actually prepared, but willing enough.
I think my favorite thing about this book, and something that surprised me, is how at all times there seems to be something that is being withheld from you, like there’s something the book isn’t telling you and you keep reading because you’re desperate to find out. Some books are pretty straightforward with how they tell the story, and I appreciated this one had a bit of technique to it.
I read the thing in one day because of it.
Should we root for the suggested couple?
Liam Kolane is the apparent heir to the pack, after his father died. But the pack has other rules for assuming the Alpha role, as it’s more about other skills than genetics. That’s all great. The thing is, most of them are mysoginistic assholes.
Ness is convinced Liam is one too. His father had been the worst of all and she’s wary of trusting his son.
Liam does something really disturbing at one point, and Ness is… she is outraged. And from that point, it was hard for me to imagine an outcome in which he can redeem himself. The story does try, but by the end, I wasn’t completely convinced.
He has his good qualities, but it was hard for me to root for them 100% after that. I did like that Ness has a hard time for a while too. At least there’s that.
Maybe if there’d been more scenes in which they bonded emotionally, like really got to know each other. But there weren’t a lot of those, so the romance part was a little wobbly for me. I hope we can explore this further in the next book because I’m genuinely curious about it!
And finally, more questions than answers
The main conflict of this book was solved, which I was grateful for. My patience paid off! But oh my god, that ending was… mysterious. I mean, this book tied things up pretty neatly, but just when I thought I knew what this was all about, some clues were dropped that I just couldn’t ignore. They’re related to the romance so you can bet I’m dying to see if my theories are correct!
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This werewolf story was slightly different than the usual ones, and I’m happy I got to read this one. The characters have potential, even the morally questionable ones, and I can’t wait to see how it all ends.
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