Cry Wolf

Blurb from Goodreads.com:

Anna never knew werewolves existed, until the night she survived a violent attack... and became one herself. After three years at the bottom of the pack, she'd learned to keep her head down and never, ever trust dominant males. Then Charles Cornick, the enforcer—and son—of the leader of the North American werewolves, came into her life.

Charles insists that not only is Anna his mate, but she is also a rare and valued Omega wolf. And it is Anna's inner strength and calming presence that will prove invaluable as she and Charles go on the hunt in search of a rogue werewolf—a creature bound in magic so dark that it could threaten all of the pack.

My Review:

I don't know if I missed something, maybe the prequel was essential to the storyline or something, but it felt like I was reading a sequel, not the first book. The story starts off suddenly, and picks up after a conflict, I felt like the past deserved to be told as a separate novel/separate preceding chapters. It was a bit jarring to start off with interactions between two characters who aren't really introduced. The first few chapters especially felt like I'd opened a book in the middle without reading the first half.

The story itself really sucked me in, the characters are very likeable, the writing is really good and the history and world setting were wonderfully described. The only thing that really bothered me was the abrupt start, which doesn't really matter, I suppose, as the story goes on and things become clearer. But even when the book ends, there are still quite a few things that were left unsaid about the past.

Some of the specific (Read: SPOILERY) things that annoyed me:
<spoiler>

-There is no real "flashback" about how Charles found out about Leo the abusive alpha after years of Leo going undetected.

-The entire past was kind of mentioned in passing but not in detail in one go, which kind of annoyed me, you have to piece together the shreds of information as you get them.

-We don't find out why their mating wasn't complete after sex and suddenly becomes complete after fighting the witch.

-Asil never tells Charles the stuff about being mated with an omega like he was planning to.

-It bugged me that Anna seeing her family again was mentioned so casually, I mean give it a proper scene with dialogue, the poor girl hasn't talked to them in 3 years!

-Basically the entire book was jarring, you're dropped in the middle of a story, no gradual introduction to the setting/characters, then you follow them around for what is essentially a single event (witch hunt) and *poof* door slams shut in your face. Any history you've managed to glean during your short stay with the characters is obtained purely by chance. If someone thinks about the past, you hear about it, otherwise you're kind of left in the dark.

</spoiler>

All in all, I enjoyed this enough to read the prequel and sequel. The world-building is amazing enough that I added the author's other series set in the same world (the Mercy Thompson series) to my TBR list.

Ever Yours~

The Know-it-all