I laughed so much, but also felt feelings.  Killian J’s so dumb, but he ended up being the endearing kind of dumb.  Una was very much a girl crush.  She deserves every good thing and I love her.  I want to see all her girls fall in love (though I am a bit worried about Mari’s age gap situation), especially Kennedy.  Kennedy was my favorite of the side characters.

 

Das ist so ein Buch, das man liest, weil ein Bagger das Glasfaserkabel beschädigt hat und die ganze Stadt ohne Fernseher, Internet, oder Telefon dasteht, so dass man das einzige Buch, das ungelesen auf dem Tablet ist, lesen muss, und es ist zufällig dieses hier, auch wenn es voll furchtbar ist, aber man hat keine Wahl * **

* Diese Geschichte beruht auf einer wahren Begebenheit

** WTF für ne Scheiße habe ich hier lesen müssen ***

*** Das einzige HEA hier wäre, wenn Werwolfjäger alles plattmachen würden und anschließend die Asche salzen

 

This book had absolutely NO BUSINESS BEING THIS GOOD.

This title, this cover, this concept? None of it looks like a book I would like and yet - I stayed up way past my bedtime finishing it. The pacing is great and the characters are so so so realistic (lol yes, I am saying that about wolf shifters, fated mates, magic and uhhhh…knots). 

Anyway, if you need me I’ll be busy making this series my whole personality.

👍🏻Recommended!! If you love groveling and modern fantasy with gripping plots and incredible tension? This is for you. 

So good! There was tons of angst between the characters. I thought Killian did a great job asking for forgiveness and listening to how he could be better. Una was a great main character to me. I liked that she had steady, silent strength. This definitely had a slower build too. 

 A rejected mate story where the heroine actually has some back bone and the hero grovels? Yes, please and thank you.

🐝 Una Hayes is a great heroine. She's a fighter, a survivor, in a way her pack will never truly appreciate. She has a bad leg and that's all they see, but she doesn't let it stop from taking care of herself and her packmates. She also has that resilience, that quiet determination to keep on moving and living. Her wolf is also a riot.

🐺 I ended up actually really liking Killian and empathize with the path he's taken. It's easy to just focus on the bad and how at times he should have known better. But when you read about how the pack worked before he became alpha, the amount of work and energy he had to put into the pack to get them out of the caves, protect the weak, earn enough money so everybody's taken care of... That required a single-minded focus and determination that unfortunately made him oblivious to other things. Seriously, he can be really dense, especially in the first half of the book. But his hard work also paved the way for Una's ability to take care of her packmates.

💞 They make a really great pair. While he was busy with the big issues in the pack, she made sure the weaker and forgotten wolves were taken care off instead of just left alone. They both grew into strong, resourceful people who complement each other very well. I'll probably read other books in the series just to see how well the pack is now doing thanks to their partnership.

💗 I really like the rejected mate trope here. In many books, this trope is used to have a bully romance where the hero treats the heroine like trash but she's still coming back to him because "the bond makes me do it". It's gross. You have a bit of that here, there were some moments where I didn't understand the dynamics or the choices made (the biology/magic behind the fated mates bond is wonky, no one really knows much about it it seems, plus the wolves have a mind of their own), but overall Una doesn't just give in, and Killian doesn't just demand. It helps that Killian is never an absolute asshole, or is being mean just for the sake of being mean. He hasn't done anything that I see as unforgivable, and he tries to make amends for the harm he's done.

🗒️ I also quite liked the writing. Not overly descriptive, direct and to the point. There are some cringey moments (especially from Killian's POV in the first half), but I really enjoyed the writing overall.

↘️ My main complaint is how little is known/explained around fated mates and their bonds. Between the baffling relationship we see between already existing fated pairs, the ramblings of the crone and her magic... It feels like the author has been purposely vague so she could do with it what she wanted when she wanted it. It was confusing and not very satisfying.

 

Here's the thing, I usually don't care for wolf shifter pack or books with alphas. I try them every year and they just fall flat for me. But this author, seems to make me at least like genres (like biker romance) that I would normally avoid. So with that in mind this is the best wolf shifter pack with a temperamental alpha and fated mate story I have ever read. I still don't love this genre, but this book was pretty good. 
Hope that makes sense. 
 

I did really enjoy this book, especially the characters. The stars reflect more of the storyline than the character building, which I loved. What really did it for me was the amazing and on point groveling. If a book has a great grovel, count me in!

I loved Una's strength and how we get to watch Killian turn himself inside out to discover she has a different kind of strength and set of skills from him. Just chef's kiss.

I did wish that the conflict for the end of the novel was more addressed/important to the rest of the story. It was hinted at and spread around, but it ultimately felt very over and done with when it came to the climax. Like, why'd we even include it if we were gonna just sweep past it so quickly? I wanted more cohesion I suppose from the whole storyline instead of..here is the romance part...here is the action part...here is the exciting climax part.

Overall this was a fun read and I do suggest it. I will be reading more in this series and from this author.

This was a unique sort of shifter romance where instead of being a mate-or-nothing sort, the alpha, Killian, rejects his fated mate, Una, initially (for really no good reason, let’s be honest) and spends the rest of the book groveling to get her back. I overall liked it and thought I’d was good, but I’m also not feeling like it’s my favourite shifter romance I’ve ever encountered. It was well-written and despite the beginning I liked how the author managed to write Killian back from an absolute a-hole to someone I actively liked. Una also came into her own in this story which was nice. Sometimes in these stories when one character has a huge character growth arc, the other character is kind of forgotten, but Una also came into her own in confidence and assertiveness throughout this book and that was a pleasure to read. I think some of the character transitions from beginning to end seemed to pop out of nowhere but this was good and I would read the next book happily. The secondary characters really popped and I’m curious about so many potential couples here. Not much diversity, but there is a gender non-conforming potential story lurking in this world (maybe in a future book) that I think would be really innovative for shifter romance.