Review: A quick but flawed story, I expected more
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 9, 2013
Gone with the Wolf is the first in Kristin Miller's Seattle Wolf Pack paranormal romance series released by Entangled Publishing and the very first story I read from her.Gone with the Wolf started out well, I loved the the chuckle out loud Halloween wine cellar scene where the air sizzled and cracked with the tension and attraction between the hero and heroine but somehow after that the story just fizzled out.Gone with the Wolf was a quick and easy read, but it left me disappointed as I had several problems with it, both when it came to the characterisation and the writing.In Gone with the Wolf Kristin Miller mixes several tropes: the enemies to lovers, the mistaken identity, the boss and the secretary, and the fated mate tropes; and I felt it was a bit too much as she didn't have any effort/depth left for the development of the characters. The main characters remained shallow, I couldn't get a grasp on Emelia she ran hot and cold, while the villain remained a cardboard character, with not much detail giving him dimension.Emelia took the whole "werewolves exist and yep, I'm turning into one" a bit too easily in my opinion, while that could have provided some understandable and justified drama.I thought there were several plot holes, some more glaring than others, like *SPOILER ALERT* The big crisis at the end of the book: Emelia is abducted yet for three days Drake doesn't look for her even though 1) she disappeared after their fight, 2) she might be in danger from his psycho brother whois hellbent on killing her, 3) it was previously stated that he gets physically sick if he spends longer times away from her and 4) with their mate connection he didn't feel her fear and stress for three days? She disappeared, didn't come to work and he just shrugged, not really worried? I found that quite the glaring black plothole... *END OF SPOILER*As to the writing style, I felt that the story was still in its rough form and would have needed more/stricter editing to smooth things out. Some things were just thrown in the story without proper explanation or reason for their inclusion, dialogues at times read fractured as if the two person communicating weren't talking to each other:"And Raul, I need you to reschedule the business meetings from this afternoon to Monday. I have to take the rest of today to finalize the deal for Emelia's bar." Raul met Drake at the door."I thought you said you were leaving the lawsuit in her hands.""I am," Drake said as rain battered the windows in a relentless onslaught. "I'm talking about the other bar. The one that'll make her forget all about the Knight Owl.""I'm sorry if this is overstepping my grounds, sir, but I overheard one of her guards talking..." S*** , here it comes. "From my understanding of what I heard, you told Emelia that a female turned werewolf wouldn't be able to survive having an Alpha's child."what is the connection between buying a bar and siring children?There was also lot of "telling" rather than "showing" in this book, the author just gave explanations for the world-building in the characters' inner thoughts, which stood out, as those were things they already had to know...Verdict: All in all, I liked the concept of mashing several of my favourite tropes into one single story, but the execution was wilted. The story started off strong and my attention was instantly hooked at the starting scene, but after that both the plot, the characters and the development of their relationship read shallow, sketched, just thrown on the paper without much development or depth. The characters remained one dimensional and I wasn't really convinced that the hero and heroine shared more than a fated sexual attraction.Gone with the Wolf held promise on paper, but sadly didn't deliver. A quick and easy read, but in the end a meh story that could have been better.Plot: 6/10Characters: 5/10Writing: 6/10Ending: 6/10Cover: 9/10 - gorgeous cover!I have a hard time deciding between 2.5 or 3 stars, the story flowed easily but due to the above detailed problems I was left disappointed.ps. I was also wondering about why was the story titled Gone with the Wolf? There was one small detail that could serve as connection, namely that Drake's yacht was called Tara, but that didn't seem reason enough for choosing this title. So I'm sorry but the importance of why the author chose this title completely flew over my head.