5 "How Do I Join the Talon Pack?" Stars
Okay guys, this is definitely a book you need to check out if you like wolfs, humans, and a steamy romance! So just to let y'all know, I went into this book without having read the other books in the series (something I plan on correcting ASAP), but the author did a great job of keeping the pace a little slow at the beginning so that I adapted to the book and characters without too much of a struggle, and then after a couple of chapters the pace picked up and suddenly I was immersed in a world a little different than what I was used to. This world was full of not only wolf-shifters but also secret government agencies and corruption and people who experimented on humans and all this other stuff!
I really enjoyed all the action to be had in this novel. The book was not wholly centered on the developing romance between the characters but also the danger the pack was in and the role the main characters play in trying to eliminate the threat. Carrie Ann Ryan did a great job of balancing action and romance so that any paranormal reader will feel like they got the best of both worlds!
note: Hannah Montannah definitely just popped into my head after writing that XD
So basically this novel revolves around some characters who have themselves in a little situation. Since I didn't read the other books, the background of the characters was confusing at first before the plot kind of pulled everything together for me. Charlotte is one of the main characters and things that happened in her past are definitely affecting her and the relationships she tries to build. She's also in love with Bram Devlin and yet they don't seem to be mates (this is where the confusion happened), and yet Bram also really likes Charlotte but is still hurt that something was missing when him and Charlotte tried to mate.
So while this emotional turmoil is going down, the wolves of another close pack find a little surprise in the form of Shane Bruins, a human who worked for those currently threatening the wolf packs. Yet something has happened to Shane that makes him different from the average human... hmmmm.
I really liked the heartbreak between Charlotte and Bram (not because I'm evil) because this added a lot of emotional depth early on in the novel and was constantly built upon even as the characters' relationships evolved. This little bit of pain really kept me guessing on what would happen next and therefore made parts of the novel more suspenseful and interesting because I kept waiting for this other shoe to drop! Yet even with these challenges, the characters really focus on the threat to the pack and I liked how the romance kind of developed out of this danger.
Overall this book was super exciting because I wasn't exactly sure of everything that was going down but some big stuff happen in the book that definitely built up the suspense and added more zing to the characters and plot. I really did enjoy this book and am looking forward to reading the other books in the series!
Don't Forget to Start at the Beginning of the Series:
Carrie Ann Ryan
October 11, 2016
255 pages
The Talon Pack continues with the daughter of a traitor, the man who can never be her lover, and another man she should never want…her enemy.
Charlotte Jamenson was born to the Pack that threatened the world, but grew up in the one that saved it. She’s spent her entire life repenting for lies and faults that were never hers to bear. When she falls for her best friend, Bram Devlin, she thinks she’s finally found forgiveness for the blood in her veins; only a mating bond never came.
Bram knows there’s something missing within his mating with Charlotte, but there’s nothing he can do about it. Their Pack is in danger, and it’s his duty to protect their Alpha—even if it means sacrificing his life. When he’s put in charge of protecting a new member of the Talon Pack, he realizes he and Charlotte may just have a chance at something more than heartache.
Shane Bruins sacrificed his life and his future to protect the Packs from the men he worked for. Now, thanks to circumstances beyond his control, he’s not quite who he was before, and his life is on the line yet again. Only this time, he isn’t alone, and the two wolves in his path might be the only things that can calm the beast inside.
The war isn’t coming, it’s here, and the Talon Pack will have to rely on three souls who know they aren’t what each other wants—but exactly what they need—to win.
excerpt
Her wolf pounced, pushing at her to go closer.
But she couldn’t.
Because she’d heard a word on the wind she shouldn’t have. The one word that could break her.
Mate.
“Charlotte?” Finn asked. “What is it?” She looked at him, her body swaying. “My wolf…” She pressed her lips together and pushed past him and the others so she could breathe once again. “Charlotte,” Finn said once again when he came to her side. “He’s your mate, isn’t he? That’s why my wolf told me to bring you. Because he’s here… because you needed to be. It’s fate, isn’t it, Charlotte? It’s a twisted, fucked up fate.”
“Fate? You think I believe in fate?” Charlotte took a deep breath then gave a dry laugh. “Oh, Finn. How could I believe in fate? What has the moon goddess ever done for me?”
Finn’s eyes widened, and she wanted to let the tears fall. He’d been through his own hell with the bond between wolf and man, and the bond between him and his mate. Yet she couldn’t think about that, not now, not ever. “Charlotte. You can't say that. You don't believe that.”
“I was born to a monster. Chained to a wall for longer than I care to remember. I watched my sister, now mother, die before somehow coming back. I was the one who told them how to kill my brother, Corbin, though they didn't have the chance. I saw more horrors than you could ever dream of before I even met the Redwoods. And you think the moon goddess blessed me? No. I don't think so. I might have had time with a family I don't deserve, but now what does she do? She gives me a mate that sides with the enemy. She gives me the enemy himself.”
Finn reached out, but she took a step back.
“Don't. Don't try to make it better. The moon goddess, in all her wisdom, gave me a human to love, a human to cherish. That… I could do. I would embrace humanity with all my heart, even if they don’t embrace us. But she didn't just give me a human. She gave me a soldier. She gave me a man who wants to kill us. Who wants to hold us captive and dissect us.” And she didn’t let her have the one wolf who should have been hers.
“You don't know that. He's not the leader, Charlotte. He could be different from the others.”
She laughed, but it held no humor. “Even better. He's a pawn with no steel, no strength. He only listens to those that fear us and want to harm us.” She rolled her shoulders and knew she had to be stronger than she was. “I'm done, Finn. I won't mate with him. I won't listen to the moon goddess or my wolf. He's not mine. He'll never be mine.”
“I'm alone.”
Alone.
Again.
She'd grown up alone. It only made sense she'd die that way, too.
trailer
