Review: Didn't love it, but it's better written than its predecessor
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 21, 2012
Warning: This review might contain what some people consider SPOILERS.Rating: 6/10PROS:- The writing is better here than in the first volume, Black Wolf: calmer, more measured, and not so disjointed. (see cons below also)- I love that there are so many different types of shifters in the world of these stories...wolves, felines, bears, birds, etc.- Bailey's naveté is cute. A little over-the-top at times, but cute.- I liked seeing Drake's insecurities at the start of the story (especially since he's so brazen outwardly) and looked forward to a change once he became more comfortable around the other two.CONS:- The main guys' emotions are all over the place, flipping from one to another very quickly: angry and then fine, depressed and then happy.- Although this is better written than the previous volume in the series, there are still some issues with the writing that make the book seem a bit on the simplistic side. Here's an example: Keith is a human, and there's a reference early on to his having to "school himself not to shift in place." In a book about various types of shifters, the word "shift" indicates a pretty specific action and shouldn't be used to describe a non-shifter's behavior. There are also numerous references to Keith's resembling a bear shifter, and his hands are referred to as "paws" more than once, yet nothing comes of these not-so-subtle hints. The writing simply isn't as careful as it should be.- There are a lot of masculine pronouns throughout the story whose antecedents are unclear. Take this sentence, for instance: "Sure, he would have liked it if he'd gone home with him instead."Overall comments: I wouldn't call this a great story, but the characters are cute, and it's a decent little diversion for a couple of hours. Everything happens quickly, without much expansion in the descriptions of events or characters' reactions to them, so it doesn't have a lot of depth.