Review: Immensely Satisfying
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 5, 2013
So, somehow I seem to have just run through the first three books in The Madison Wolves series in as many days and am only just now coming up for air. Oh I'll get to the rest, no doubt, but after the third it was time to take a short break, and not only that, I thought I'd drop by and post my thoughts on each one so far...which is already a triumph for the author right there because, I don't write reviews. Check my history, if that's possible, I just am not normally motivated to write reviews, and yet, here I am.Starting here with Fox Run, the author wastes little time diving right into the story and doesn't bother with a lot of exposition. Exposition has it's place of course, but how much is appropriate depends so much on what kind of story you're telling. Too much can wreck a simple story, whereas too little in a complex work and suddenly you're lost. Here, our story begins on a bright, sunny morning and just dives right into the main narrative. The first thing that hooked me right away was the casually conversational tone. Told from the 1st person perspective of Michaela Redfur, the flow of the words was so natural, I instantly felt as though I was sitting in the same room with her, perhaps as a new friend of hers, as she regales me with stories of how she came to be where she is today. Told in that kind of tone, the story becomes instantly relatable, no matter how fantastical the subject matter may be.The plot isn't particularly complex, but then it doesn't need to be. What kept me turning page after page after page after page, was the depth of the characters. I've been a fan of paranormal romance for awhile, and were-being romance specifically, but what disappoints me most is when I select such a book and find that the author has used the were aspect as an afterthought...a book where the author wrote essentially a mainstream romance novel and use the 'were' aspect to explain some the characters' quirky behavior. Sometimes the 'were' part will be involved in the climax sometimes it won't. Those kinds of books are a let down for me. let me tell you something. This is NOT one of those books. A deeply character driven story will get me every time and I was not disappointed.The fact of the matter is every 'were' character in this book acts so much like the animal they are, whether they're in their were form or not, that I found myself actually forgetting after the first couple of pages that these characters even had a human form. The characters shift back and forth between forms so often and the change is so swift and natural, that you can instantly tell they embrace their animal side as much as their human side, if not more so. In fact several times throughout the book when there would be a physical description of their human selves, which doesn't come up often, I'd have to stop myself, blink and say 'oh yeah, they do have human forms don't they'. Born naturally as weres, this book presents their animal form as another natural part of their existence and you truly come to believe that these are wolves and foxes and so forth.As I said, the plot of the first book isn't especially complex. It sets up the relationship between Michaela and the madison wolf pack and consequently launches the romance between her and the packs Alpha, Lara. There's mystery, intrigue, plenty of cross-species misunderstandings, and quite a rocky start to the romance, but by the last page it's all been worth it. It makes you want to move right on to the second book which is exactly what I did.If you've been looking for a 'were' story that can truly make you believe these are weres and not just two dimensional human characters acting like them, than this is the series for you!