Guest Review: Tall, Dark and Wolfish by Lydia Dare

The reckless, rakish younger brother of a powerful duke, Lord Benjamin Westfield transforms into a wolf under the light of the full moon—until one fateful evening when he doesn’t change and his life is shattered. Fearing he may never be able to change again, Benjamin sets out for Scotland in search of a witch who can heal his inner beast. The noble werewolf is drawn to the beautiful young woman, but what does he have to offer in this broken state?

Benjamin Westfield had an incident with a whore. He knew better than to be with a woman when the moon was waxing but he ignored all the signs and signals and did it anyway. When he was too rough with her – meaning scratches on her back, etc. (no beating or anything like that), and was duly reprimanded by his brother the duke, something happened to him. He lost confidence or…something and now he lacked the power to change into his wolf during the full moon. Seeking help from another Lycan friend he’s sent to Scotland to look up a healer aka a powerful witch. When Ben gets there he meets a healer but not the one he’s looking for.

Elspeth Campbell is a powerful witch and a healer – she’s also bastard born and looked down upon by society. But that doesn’t stop Elspeth from attending some pretty fine balls as she has some pretty powerful friends – namely the families of the other girls in her coven. When Elspeth, who is party Lycan but doesn’t know it meets Ben she is mesmerized by him. But her friends are determined to keep them apart as the seer of her coven had a vision and predicted that a man would come to take Elspeth away. Despite her friends’ machinations Ben and Elspeth have a certain bond that they share. They each have the mark of the beast and it definitely works in strange and mysterious ways. But Ben still doesn’t have his confidence back enough to change at the full moon. Elspeth is determined to heal him.

This is book 2 in the Westfield Brothers series and it’s a good one. In the first book the brother was determined to keep his Lycan side forever hidden from his wife and I was hoping that it wasn’t the same for Benjamin. I can say that it wasn’t. In order to heal Ben, Elspeth needed to know exactly what the problem was so it was nice to be able to see them working out the problem together. I can’t say that I agreed some of the decisions that either Elspeth or Ben made regarding their future at times, but I understood them.

Ben and Elspeth were great together, I thought. They just got along from minute one and felt the bond that they shared without having the inst-love that we see so much in shifter stories. I very much enjoyed how Ms. Dare portrayed their friendship and eventual love as something that was deep and meaningful but still fun. Overall a very good book and I’m looking forward to reading the last in the series.

Rating: 4.25 out of 5

The series:




You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place

This book is available from Sourcebooks. You can buy it here or here in e-format.