Review: Past My Defenses
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 23, 2014
ARC kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.I think what sold me on this story was the ridiculous (not in the bad way) main character. Vanessa is a werewolf that's allergic to a crapload of things, including some other animals. It almost feels as if she should be allergic to the wolf version of herself. The allergies, for me, served the purpose of making Vanessa more likable. She was super stubborn, to the point of doing things that were kind of reckless. That ordinarily would have made me hate her, but then she'd have an allergy attack of massive proportions that would remind me she's not so bad (for some reason, perceived weaknesses can sometimes make a person seem a little more down-to-earth to me).Dane's easy-going(ish) attitude was his big selling point for me. He seemed to take everything in stride, except for Jordan the Alpha. But he seemed super chill about discovering lycans were real and that he was mated to one because of some weird werewolf scentmatch. That would have been a bombshell for me, but not so much for Dane.For the most part, I felt the story was pretty solid. The only thing that really drove me up a wall was the insane amount of insecurities in Vanessa and Dane's relationship and the fact that they couldn't communicate with each other. If one of them had bothered to broach the subject, it would have saved me a lot of frustration. Dane spent nearly the whole book wondering if Vanessa really wanted him or if it was all just the scentmatch (AND her being in heat). Vanessa spent an equal amount of time wondering if he even felt the scentmatch. Both were easily answered questions as evidenced by the moment when they finally asked them.I did think this was a fun, quick read and I would definitely pick up more of Wendy Sparrow's work!