Reviewer: Casee Heart of the Wolf by Terry Spear
Series: Heart of the Wolf #1
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Publication Date: April 1st 2008
Genres: Fiction
Pages: 400
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Series Rating:
Book 1 in Terry Spear's Heart of the Wolf series
Their forbidden love may get them both killed.
Bella is a red werewolf, sole survivor of the fire that killed her entire pack.Devlyn is a beta male werewolf in a pack of grays.
Forced to flee her adopted gray pack when the alpha male becomes a vicious threat, she struggles to live as a lone wolf, until Devlyn, the gray male who rescued her as a pup, comes to bring her home.When a local red werewolf goes on a killing spree, Bella and Devlyn must flee the murderer, the police and their vengeful pack leader. With the full moon rising, and her heat upon her, Bella can't resist the pull to her destined mate, even if means Devlyn will have to face the wicked alpha male in a fight to the death...
A sizzling paranormal romance based on extensive research on how wolves live and behave in the wild, creating a fascinating world of nature and fantasy.
I really wasn’t sure about this book when I first started reading it. First of all, Bella actually gets captured as a wolf and put in the zoo. Not only that, but she gets put in with a real red wolf who wants to mate with her. So it was amusing in an are you kidding me? sort of way.
Bella has spent most of her life trying to avoid Volan, the alpha of her pack. Believing that all she has to do is mate with a human male and turn him into a werewolf, she tries to do exactly that. All it does is get said human male killed. Poor guy. He really didn’t do anything. So anyway, after Volan kills this guy, Bella runs. Far away.
Fast forward almost 200 years. Bella is now living in Oregon. While she misses living with her pack, she still believes that she made the right decision by leaving. Staying in touch with the former alpha, Bella gets news from home though no one else in the pack knows where she is. She can’t forget Devlyn, the man/wolf that she’s been in love with since the day he saved her from the fire that killed her family. Though she understands Devlyn is the beta to Volan’s alpha, she still resents him for trying to get her to go to Volan.
That, my dear readers is what I had the biggest problem with. When I first started reading this book, Devlyn seemed like a total wussy. I like my heroes alpha, especially in paranormals. Reading about a beta hero just didn’t do it for me. Not to mention that even knowing the kind of man Volan is, Devlyn still thinks that Bella should be his mate. And he’s supposedly in love with her. Ugh.
Nonetheless, two DNF books in one month was too much for my OCD complex to take. So I forged ahead. I’m really glad I did b/c I really ended up liking Devlyn. I was just so-so about Bella the whole time. Didn’t hate her, but didn’t exactly love her either.
When Devlyn finds out Bella is alive, he immediately goes to bring her back to Volan. It isn’t until he sees this woman/wolf that he loves that he realizes that he will never let Bella go. He would rather fight Volan to the death. That’s what turned it around for me. Rather than Devlyn not wanting to go against his alpha, it was that he hadn’t admitted to himself that Bella was his. Soooo like a man. So Devlyn redeemed himself in my eyes.
Then there was the whole “pack” dynamic that Spear created. If there is a wolf living in the territory of another pack, the alpha of that pack has the right to claim her. Whether or not she’s mated. If she’s mated, her mate must fight the alpha to the death (in wolf form). If he kills the alpha, the wolf that will step up to be the new alpha can choose to fight him. And on it goes. It was really rather fascinating.
The showdown between Volan and Devlyn did the book justice, in my opinion. I really liked how it ended.
I’m looking forward to seeing where this series goes. It definitely has potential.
4 out of 5
Heart of the Wolf Series:
Heart of the Wolf (Book 1)
To Tempt the Wolf (Book 2)
Legend of the White Wolf (Book 3)
Seduced by the Wolf (Book 4)
I had this book in my hand yesterday at the book store, and put it down. I might have to look for it again. But I will think on it, I love my heroes very alpha as well.