Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Wildlife artist Dylan Shore is accompanying his sister Frankie as she being Northwestern University. He decides to go to the zoo to see if he can find anything interesting to draw. Sitting at the wolf exhibit, a group of young men come up to him and ask why he did not pay respect when he came into pack territory. Thinking his only way to prevent from being killed by this gang, he runs. While he can outrun most everybody, these four not only keep pace but are actually gaining ground. Only when a car pulls up along him does Dylan find an actual escape route. He jumps in the car and they put the gang behind them.
Alex is a statistician doing medical research in Chicago. As fourteenth in the Seattle pack, he is the lowest ranking werewolf there. When he sees a strange werewolf running from members of the Chicago North pack, he decides to give the man a break, hoping the others don’t recognize him or his car. After all, as a low ranking visiting wolf, you don’t want to piss off your hosts. As he gets to know Dylan, there are two things that surprise him. First, Dylan is a gay werewolf. Second, Dylan has no clue that he is a werewolf. It is no wonder that Dylan does not understand pack protocol. With members of the Chicago North pack after both of them, Alex must now educate what it means to be a shifter. But when both are captured and taken to a military research facility, Alex’s mission changes. Now he must keep both of them, along with a young shifter boy, alive in order to escape. When the escape occurs, it will have far reaching consequences for the werewolves not only across the country, but the world.
I have enjoyed Kaje Harper’s Hidden Wolves series from the start. This is the fourth book (not counting two interlude titles) to the series and as such should be read in order in order to understand the over-arching story lines. The series is a bit darker than most shifter series. The emphasis is on pack politics and hierarchy, along with doing what wolves need to do to advance. In fact, Aaron calls his mate “eleventh” during official pack business. They are human wolves.
As for this book, I like that the first part of the book focused mostly on the new characters that are introduced here. There are mentions of the leader of the Alpha Council and the alpha of the Chicago North pack but do not play a major role until later. In fact, the main characters of the previous books do not appear until two thirds of the way through the book. Simon and Paul’s two kittens (both of whom think that they are wolf pups) make a cameo as well. I await the next book in this series.
I like the cover by Winterheart Designs. It has our two young men causally dresses as if going out in the Chicagoland area. Below them is the skyline for Chicago. Above them are wolf eyes watching out over the scene. This fits the model of the other covers in the series.
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Book Details
Ebook, 393 pages
Edition Language: English
Published: September 9, 2016 by MLR Press
ISBN: 978-1-944770-32-7
Series: Hidden Wolves – add to your Goodreads shelf here:
Stephen Jurgens has psychic gifts passed down from his grandmother.
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