Review: Great original take on werewolves
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 15, 2014
Brynn Atwood has been called a failure her entire life. Her father is a powerful elemental magus and member of their ruling council, but her powers are unreliable and according to her father, useless. She loves research and teaching, but gets fired from her tutoring job, making her feel even more unwanted. When she has a vision of a man standing over her father's dead body, she sets out to prevent his death and prove her value to the magi.Rook McQueen is the youngest son of the alpha of the loup-garou run (werewolf pack) in Cornerstone, PA. He's just returned home from college, and left his job as lead singer in an up-and-coming rock band, to help his family run the pack. He's also the man from Brynn's vision. Brynn's arrival in town to confront Rook coincides with an attack on a nearby run, arousing the loups' suspicions and drawing Brynn into a potential war.Black Rook is technically a romance, but the mystery is really the focus and it's not a light and breezy read. There's some heavy subject matter and the writing is dense - I felt like I really had to pay attention or I would miss something. (I felt the same way when I started reading Jane Yellowrock, which is now one of my favorite series, so that's not necessarily a bad thing.) The action picks up about half way through and it started to move a little faster.I thought the world, especially the loup mythos, was really interesting. The idea that the color of the wolf indicates their skill and determines their place in the run was something I haven't seen before. It's refreshing to see werewolves without predestined mates, though they do have rules about who they can marry. It's those rules and expectations that threaten to keep the couple apart, rather than any angsty issues from either of them, which is also kind of refreshing. I suspect the rest of the series will get deeper into the background of its other species, the magi and the vampires, and I'm excited to see Meade's twist on them.Black Rook is the first book in a trilogy and it looks like the story arc continues through all three. So while each has a new couple with their HEA, the conflict isn't resolved until the end. I guessed some of the connections between the characters pretty early on, though one of them did surprise me, but it looks like it will get even more involved before it's over. I'm really intrigued by this world and looking forward to seeing where it goes.I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.