Tag: Caldwell Publishing

Guest Review: To Trust a Wolf by Danielle Hardgrave

Posted June 23, 2016 by Tracy in Reviews | 0 Comments

Guest Review: To Trust a Wolf by Danielle HardgraveReviewer: Tracy
To Trust a Wolf by Danielle Hardgrave
Series: Unnatural Alliances #1
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: June 3rd 2016
Genres: Paranormal Romance
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two-stars
Series Rating: two-stars

As an archivist in a small museum, the biggest thing Helen Jurist has to deal with each year is the Annual Donor Gala. When her museum becomes a flurry of activity, due to the nearby discovery of a large Viking hoard, Helen finds the additional responsibility more of a pain than an honor. She doesn’t know anything about Vikings, or what makes the hoard so unusual. She just wants to get through the gala without her boss catching the drapes on fire.

Nobody from the public is supposed to have access to the find, but try telling that to Rune Helsen. A handsome Dane with wolfish desires, he walks around like he owns the place. He’s Helen’s worst nightmare—if only her traitorous body wasn’t so attracted to him.

But Rune has a secret, one that brought him to see the artifacts for more than just scholarly interest. Unknown to Helen, there’s so much more at stake than just pulling off a successful evening. A whole world she never knew existed, a world of vampires and shifters, stands on the precipice—and there’s something in the Cutler Hoard that could burn it all down.

Helen works at a museum as an archivist and is deep into getting the museum’s Annual Donor Gala off the ground.  It’s just around the corner but the museum takes on a collection that’s very large and appears to be a Viking hoard – found in Vermont of all places.  When her boss interrupts her day to tell her that she needs to play tour guide to a donor who wants to see the hoard she’s a bit peeved to say the least.

Rune Helsen is the only good thing about the tour that Helen enjoys.  He’s a bit odd and seems to be quite interested in several pieces in the hoard but she puts the oddness aside since he’s so hot.  When Rune asks her to accompany him to the gala she accepts.

While at the gala strange things start to happen.  Helen meets a guy who seems to be asking a lot of questions and Helen’s confused because things she doesn’t want to tell him keep coming out of her mouth.  Then Rune disappears and when she finds that her museum key card is missing from her purse she’s just sure he’s out to steal something.  What she thinks will be a simple robbery turns into Helen seeing giant wolves and men with fangs fighting and Rune acting like it’s just another day after he shifts from wolf to man when it’s anything but normal!

This book had a decent premise and one that caught my attention but it didn’t end up being quite as good as I’d hoped.

My first issue with the story was with Helen.  She was almost the epitome of a boring museum employee.  She just didn’t have a whole lot of personality.  It’s not that I didn’t like her it was that I really didn’t care one way or the other about her which isn’t good at all.

Rune came on the page and he added a bit of flavor but I couldn’t figure out what his angle was.  When eventually his story came out it was a bit discombobulated.  It wasn’t that the story was bad or confusing I just didn’t see what the point of it all was.  When I thought everything would be explained the story just ended and I was left wondering what the heck I just read.  I definitely don’t like that feeling!  I couldn’t tell, when all was said and done, if the author intended for this to be the first book in a series and we’re gonna get more later, if that was the author’s version of a cliff-hanger or if that was just it. I definitely needed more closure by the end of the story and I just didn’t get it.  So while parts of this story were decent other parts weren’t so good and the entire novella ended up just being an ok read.

Rating: 2 out of 5

two-stars


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