Review: 3.5 stars - A Motor City reunion - almost all our old favs appear
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 30, 2011
I thought Motor City Wolf was pretty good but since I really liked the first two books in the series book 3 had a hard act to follow. Mostly there were just a bunch of little nits that the kept Motor City Wolf from living up to it's predecessors and those nits are more of the after-the-story-is-over kind, because I enjoyed the Motor City Wolf while I was reading it and it was a nice change of pace to read a shifter romance in which the pairing wasn't a done deal from the start due to a irresistible destined mate bond jump-starting the attraction.My nits: The steamy stuff starts early, but the tension building in the relationship between bar owner alpha shifter Greg and now human former fae Fianna, happened before the beginning of the story - I would have liked to have 'seen' that tension build and not just 'heard' about it.  Once the pair gives into their attraction, the aftermath of the  'full moon night' coupling, combines with an edict by Greg's alpha Grandfather that it's time for Greg to do his duty and take a mate, and quickly Greg and Fianna find themselves on the way to the altar for reasons that don't have much to do with romance.  It bugged me a bit that especially Fianna just goes along blithely with whatever comes along and the 'I love you' (and 'I loved you all along ' but I didn't know it) comes way late in the game in an offhand way instead of in a more well timed passion filled declaration.This also didn't keep me from enjoying the story while I was reading it, but afterwards the background story, with the infamous werewolf assassin and an entity that supposedly ties in to the big supernatural conspiracy that runs through the series, just didn't hold together on its own. When we finally find out the reason behind the attacks, and the identity of the notorious werewolf assassin Beowulf, all the pieces don't quite fit together and its pretty clear that they are there  just to carry the starring pair down the road to to their Happily Ever After.Nits aside, I need to remember that these are light, sexy reads and with that in mind I still really like the setup for the Urban Arcana series and the romances between Fae, Witches and Shifters living around a portal to the Fae lands which happens to be situated in Detroit. And it was fun to see pretty much all of the old characters put in an appearance here. I also liked seeing sorcerer Des play a role in the story and watching the sparks fly between him and Greg's cousin Lana - considering Des' issue with shifters that should be a pretty interesting future pairing.