Tracy’s review of A Certain Wolfish Charm by Lydia Dare
He gets crankier and crankier as the moon gets full…
The rules of Society can be beastly-especially when you’re a werewolf and it’s that irritating time of the month. Simon Westfield, the Duke of Blackmoor, is rich, powerful, and sinfully handsome, and has spent his entire life creating scandal and mayhem. It doesn’t help his wolfish temper at all that Miss Lily Rutledge seems not the least bit afraid of him, and in fact, may be as untamable as he is…
A woman whose charm is stronger than the moon…
When Lily’s beloved nephew’s behavior becomes inexplicably wild, she turns to Simon, the boy’s cousin and guardian, for help. But Simon’s idea of assistance is far different than hers, and Lily finds herself ensconced in his house and engaged to the rogue.
They both may have bitten off more than they can chew when each begins to discover the other’s darkest secrets…
Lily heads to Simon Westfield, Duke of Blackmoor’s estate after having her letters ignored time and time again. She arrives and finds that he’s ready to ignore her some more – until he finds out that his young cousin could be experiencing the same thing he does every month – the call of the moon. After chasing Lily off he realizes he needs to go after her. He heads off and finds her at an inn where she’s about to be attacked by thugs. Once he gets Lily close to him he realizes that he just doesn’t want to let go – but he really doesn’t want her near either.
Simon becomes obsessed with Lily but her friend Prisca, a neighbor of Blackmoor’s, will manipulate Simon into claiming her as his bride. She ruins Lily’s reputation, without a thought, and tries everything in her power to get them together. Her plan works but is it really what Simon wants? What he really wants is to be free to be himself – that being some sort of shifter, which we’re led to believe is some sort of wolf though we’re not positive of that until the end of the book. Lily and Simon marry and though they love each other Simon is determined that Lily will never know that he’s a shifter and continually lies to her throughout the book. But Lily’s smarter than Simon thinks and starts to figure things out.
I’ll be honest, I had very mixed feelings about this book. It started off with a bang and I was into it right away –but then it started to rise and fall and I wasn’t too excited about it at times. There were definitely thing I liked about the book but there were some aspects of it that I just didn’t care for. Simon was a great hero, some of the time. The rest of the time he was a selfish man who had no faith in his wife to understand what he was even though he knew her to be extremely strong-willed. His lies to Lily really started to get to me after a while. Then there was Prisca, the neighbor. I don’t have to read the next two books to know that at some point Simon’s brother, Will, will end up with Prisca. They care for each other but hide it behind sharp tongues and “fun” barbs and a history that we weren’t made aware of in this book. But Prisca was too manipulative – not just with Simon and Lily but with Will and her brothers as well. I really can’t wait to eventually see her comeuppance…if it comes – I hope it does. Storyline-wise I was disappointed that whatever Simon shifted to was not described until the end of the book. I just kept wondering – wolf? Werewolf man? Creature? What? It was not a good state of anticipation for me. lol
Despite the things that I didn’t care for in the book there were quite a few I did like. I really loved Lily and her strength. Despite believing that she was a spinster and firmly on the shelf at the ripe old age of 23 she handled herself quite well and showed a maturity that I quite admired. I also really liked Will, Simon’s brother. He had a lovely sense of humor and came up with some great comebacks. Hopefully when I read his book his humor will still be in tact.
Overall I thought it was an entertaining book. I would have liked to have seen more of the paranormal aspects in it as I always like shifter books to actually have more shifting in them. 🙂 I look forward to reading the next two books in this series and seeing what happens with the other two Westfield brothers.
Rating: 3.75 out of 5.
This book is available from Sourcebooks. You can buy it here or here in e-format.
You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place.
I had a harsher reaction to this book than you did, but for the same reasons. I, too, was really bothered by Prisca’s actions – maybe if they’d happened later in the book it would have been understandable but the fact was that the h/h had only known each other a week when she pulled that crap.
Anime – Yeah, Prisca wasn’t a very likable character to me – which is sad since we KNOW she’ll be Will’s mate. Did it bother you that Simon wouldn’t come forth with the info of what he was?
Well, crud. I was looking forward to this book. I might still give it a chance, though I’m not nearly as excited about it as I once was.
I was really looking for this one, but I think I’ll just wait for it from the library now. Thanks for the review Tracy.
Tracy –> What I hated more was that Prisca and Will are so obviously trying to shove their sequel down our throats from the first page.
As for Simon, yeah, it was pretty annoying – ESPECIALLY since by the last third of the book the heroine KNOWS something’s up and she explicitly asks him several times “what are you hiding?” and he just says “nothing.” It wasn’t even lying by omission.
Mrs. Hanson – It’s still a good read maybe just not as wonderful as I’d hoped.
Ames – I probably would.
AnimeJune – Totally true. I was actually surprised when I got the books and saw that Ben’s book was next. I wasn’t thrilled because that may mean there is more Will/Prisca in the second book and I’m not sure I want to read about her. lol
Yep – Simon’s bald-faced lying was just a bit much for me. I think if he would have come clean earlier I would have given the book a higher rating.