Guest Review: Werewolf in Alaska by Vicki Lewis Thompson

Reviewer: Judith
Werewolf in Alaska (Wild About You, #5) by Vicki Lewis Thompson
Series: Wild About You #5
Publisher: Signet
Publication Date: July 2nd 2013
Genres: Paranormal Romance
Pages: 316
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Series Rating:

He’s a lone wolf—for now.

In Polecat, Alaska, Rachel Miller and Jake Hunter have a mutual admiration for each other—from across a lake. There’s nothing Rachel likes more than spying on the very fit wilderness guide when he skinny-dips each night. And Jake has always been curious about his reclusive artist neighbor. He even bought Rachel’s first wood carving: a wolf who looks suspiciously like him...

Jake is a werewolf, but not just any werewolf. He’s the founder of WARM (Werewolves Against Random Mating). And that means a human like Rachel is off-limits, no matter how attractive he finds her.

But when Rachel is threatened by a bear, and Jake shifts to save her, their lives collide with an intense passion, one that could change everything they’ve ever felt about themselves—and each other...

I have lots of favorite authors and the list keeps growing.  But those I like the best are writers who have the capacity to move outside a particular aspect of romance fiction, don’t get stuck writing versions of the same thing all the time, and who are not afraid to challenge themselves to write something different.  Ms Thompson has demonstrated that ability in this new novel that is quite different from her cowboy tales and her American life contemporaries.  Here she has constructed a story that is filled with emotional push/pull involving a gawk-worthy wolf whose nightly skinny-dipping mesmerizes his neighbor across the lake, and a young woman sculptor whose renditions of wolves look amazingly life-like.  In fact, Jake is convinced that she has patterned several to look just like him when he was spotted in the woods when he had shifted.  Yet there is also a political component here that brings the reader face to face with the prejudice that can cripple co communities and destroy relationships.  And even though it is all paranormal fantasy, the principles are here to be considered.  Jake doesn’t believe in anything but “pure” matings.  Sound familiar?

Ms Thompson has given her readers a compelling look into the shifter communities who are struggling with this whole idea of species purity while having to face the fact that they live in a wider world and have many paranormals who have formed lasting and wholesome relationships with humans and other shifters.  There are some surprises in this story, many of which are late in the story and which give a unexpected twist to what readers are expecting to be the outcome of Jake and Rachel’s love affair.  This is a very intense story and not always easy to read.  But I think it will be one that will stimulate the mind as well as entertain.  That’s really the absolutely best kind of book, as I see it.

I give this novel a rating of 4 out of 5.

You can read more from Judith at Dr J’s Book Place.

This book is available from Signet. You can buy it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher for an honest review.

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