Rating: 3.25 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novel
Roman Redthorne is a Bloodstrain wolf. His pack is one of the most feared as ingested blood increases Roman’s strength and power. Roman is positioned to take over as pack alpha and not everyone is pleased with that, especially Roman’s brother, Sean. Roman lives by few rules, but the one rule he must conform to is to breed with an omega who will strengthen the pack line.
Jake is an omega, but he’s not the omega that can be what Roman needs. When Roman is betrayed by his brother and left for dead, Jake puts himself on the line to save Roman. Now a prisoner of the enemy, Roman has revenge on his mind. But something about Jake calls to him and the feeling is completely foreign to Roman as Bloodstrain wolves don’t feel romantic emotion. Roman thinks he has to fight to be free, but Jake is calling into question everything Roman thought he knew to be true.
The description of this book had me intrigued to get to it right away. The opening was interesting as we get caught up with pack dynamics for both Roman and Jake, and Roman is betrayed by his brother. I was then expecting a good revenge story with a forbidden fated mates vibe added in, and while I did get some of that, the execution wasn’t all I was hoping for.
Roman is the strongest of his line and he can’t help that anymore than his brother, Sean, can help not being the strongest. There is no mating for love in this world and mates are politically arranged by pack alphas. The omegas have no say where they go, who they are mated with, or how they are treated. The alpha of Jake’s pack is cruel and the entire pack is constantly on edge.
The storyline all had the same tone for me and it was largely flat once Roman is captured. The Bloodstain wolves that Roman is from do not feel emotion, so I felt it was more difficult to capture a romance when one of the pair doesn’t feel anything. There are mentions of Roman not understanding why Jake affects him so much and trying to understand what he is feeling, but overall, I didn’t feel the emotion of this relationship.
The book started veering off course for me the first time Roman and Jake are together physically. Due to the physical constraints of where Roman is at the time, I could not make the logistics of the scene between the two of them work, even as I read the scene more than once.
Then, there are a lot of pack dynamics, which is important to know, but there are a lot of characters that are all being set up for their own books and this story went in too many directions for my tastes and the relationship between Roman and Jake was ultimately not satisfying. The revenge aspect was also lackluster and much too quiet and even the mpreg felt uneventful.
The book started out promising, but started a downward slide as it progressed. This is the first book of a multi-book series and I was looking forward to becoming immersed in a new world and now I will have to consider whether I will continue on.
