Made with love
© Victoria Gryson 2024
My father made a terrible mistake. One I’m left paying for.
As a wolf shifter growing up in a strong pack, I should be living my best life. But after my father tried to kill the alpha, I’m labeled an outcast, traitor, less than dirt.
When I can’t take pack life any longer, I run, but apparently they don’t like losing their punching bag. Torin, the alpha’s son, drags me back before my first shift… a shift that will reveal my true mate.
I never could have predicted who mine would be, but the moment my wolf looks upon him, I’m filled with hope for a brighter future.
After all, no one ever rejects their true mate, right?
Wrong. Very wrong.
When the wolves attack, my soul screams for vengeance, and somehow I touch the shadow world. Somehow I bring him to our lands.
The Shadow Beast. Our shifter god. The devil himself.
Turns out being rejected by my mate was only the beginning.
As soon as I finished the sample, I knew I had to buy it there and then… I neeeeeeeeeeded it! So yeah… here I am, reviewing 😉
I think this was done very well. This is pretty difficult without spoiling the story, but we join Mera as she travels to different locations and each and every one of those was well detailed. There wasn’t any information dump, just Mera’s own observations and information she received from others. The world the author created has a lot of possibilities, I liked it a lot!
Mera’s father challenged the alpha and died for it, resulting in Mera’s pariah status in the pack. As their favourite punching bag and black sheep, she has endured a lot (as she herself stated: pretty much everything except rape). This meant she has grown up with really thick skin, she rolls with the punches and never shows fear. She is an enigma to our resident bad boy, the Shadow Beast, who needs her for his own personal agenda.
Queue the sometimes enemies, sometimes allies vibe going on between them… which is nice, but you really do get fed up with it near the end. I know, I know, trust isn’t really something either has plenty of, but still, come on…
At the end of the book we only have a little bit of backstory info about Shadow, so would really love to get to know him more.
I do have to mention though that Shadow’s friends are awesome and I hope the author gives them more time in the next instalment!
Angel is also someone I want to know more about, even though her story is heartbreaking.
Unfortunately, slow is pretty much the name of the game here.
There was enough happening, but not nearly enough as what I would have loved to see in a book with this many pages (Goodreads states 378 pages). That said the flow was great! I read it in one go, it kept my attention effortlessly, but that ending… talk about a cliffhanger.
The book itself was well written with no (noticeable) errors. There is sex described (if that is important to you).
All in all, an enjoyable read. Be advised though that it ends with a cliffhanger, so if you hate those (we all have a love/hate relationship with them, I know), then I would advise you to wait for the next instalment or even for the whole series to be done.
Level of steam: I’d give it a 4/10 (apart from one incident, nothing really happens).
I will surely read the next instalment and hope that the characters (other than Mera) are a bit more fleshed out and the pacing doesn’t feel so slow.
© Victoria Gryson 2024