Rating: 2 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novella
Now that Arran and Marek are together, the pack’s attention has turned to the hunter, Kyler, and Marek’s brother, Stefan. Stefan should have been alpha of the pack, if only it hadn’t been for his crippled leg.
Kyler is Stefan’s mate. The bond between them is as unmistakable as light on a sunny day or the wind moving through the trees. It’s a gift from the heavens, a magical blessing that has the power to heal wounded hearts … and even a wounded body.
While I did enjoy the first two books in the Wolfy series, featuring Arran and Marek, I have problems with this final installment. Stefan, for reasons unknown to medical science or werewolf magic, injures himself when he tries to shift. So much so that he was bedridden for a year and passed over for alpha in favor of his brother. Stefan’s leg is twisted and he requires assistance in walking. Until he meets his mate. Love, it turns out, is the cure for all things because Stefan’s disability seems to be blown away like dandelion fluff by Kyler’s sheer existence.
The writing is competent, but the pacing of the story feels off. It spends long moments on hair braiding and then breezes over Kyler’s epiphany about how his family and their profession — hunting, torturing, and killing shifters — led to poor parenting, and wasn’t exactly the healthiest place to raise a child. And, thus, Kyler’s childhood traumas were not necessarily the fault of shifters. This seems like it could have been something important, but it’s a page or two of exposition before it’s time for the healing sex. Kyler, who was a sex worker as a young man to make ends meet and has never been treated as anything worthy of love, seems to have everything made right by Stefan’s mere touch.
I appreciate that the limited medium of a novella might not have been enough to delve into some of the heavy topics in Kyler’s story, but the rushed attempt feels half-hearted. And the ableist take on Stefan’s disability being cured by magic feels insensitive at best and borders on disrespectful, especially with his thoughts on how he didn’t feel worthy while he had mobility issues, but now he’s ready to be the man he was always meant to be.
Enjoy the first two books in the series, because they are light hearted fun. But I do not recommend this installment in the series at all.
