Review: Dreaming of the Wolf

DREAMING OF THE WOLF
Heart of the Wolf #8
Terry Spear
Adult Paranormal Romance
Sourcebooks
Available Now
Received from author for review

THE STORY (from Amazon)

A FIERCE HUNTER...

Alicia Greiston is a no-nonsense bounty hunter determined to bring a ring of mobsters to justice. Her dogged pursuit of the crime family has forced her to avoid relationships— any man would only become a target for retribution. Luckily, Jake Silver is more than a man, and his instincts are telling him to stop at nothing to protect her.

AN ANIMAL PASSION...

However, the mob isn't entirely human either, and soon Alicia must flee for her life. When Alicia and Jake's passion begins to spill over into their dreams, Jake learns he will have to do more than defend her— he'll have to show his mate the way of the wolf.

MY THOUGHTS
Though Dreaming of the Wolf is the eighth book in Terry Spear’s werewolf series, the romance between Jake and Alicia does stand on its own, introducing those of us who haven’t read the previous books to the world as Alicia finds herself drawn deeper in, and we are able to latch on to the comforting familiarity of sexual tension and desire to keep us grounded. The relationship between our hero and heroine progresses physically with surprising rapidity however, and despite our ability to recognize that instant physical attraction is more than possible, the speed with which the two of them moves denies us the chance to know them individually before we see them as a romantic pair. As a result, Jake and Alicia never quite fully take shape for us as readers, existing more in words and phrases than in crystal clear mental images and memorable emotional cords.

Alicia is a woman who creates a myriad of conflicting feelings, her determination to see the men who killed her mother behind bars admirable and her ability to take what’s thrown at her in stride a trait we can’t help but appreciate, but at the same time her nonchalance with regard to some fairly alarming situations is also a bit troublesome. At one point she is knocked unconscious and abducted, awaking to find herself naked in a strange bedroom knowing there was a man with whom she was vaguely familiar there at some point, and it takes her quite a long time to get to the place where she questions whether or not she could have been raped. Even when she recognizes the possibility of such an intimate violation, she really doesn’t seem all that bothered by it, instead moving on to the other, presumably bigger, problems in her life with what appears to be ease. Everyone of course reacts to traumatic events differently, but Alicia shows so little emotion throughout the entire story that it’s difficult to feel a connection to the problems and events taking place in her life.

Jake is much the same as Alicia in terms of exhibiting any sort of range of feeling outside possessiveness and lust/love, and so we read this story with a more superficial appreciation for a paranormal romance rather than a deep and meaningful reaction to our protagonists. Ms. Spear does create an intriguing family history for Alicia, and the cast of secondary characters–particularly Jake’s brother Tom–add a bit of personality that seems to be missing from both the hero and heroine, so while this particular romance may not have blown us away, there is plenty to indicate that some of the other installments may do just that. I look forward to going back and reading a few of the earlier stories, hoping all the while that maybe a story for Tom may be on it’s way at some point.

Rating: 3/5