Review: Looking forward to the next move for the McQueen brothers
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 15, 2014
Though Brynn's powerful magus father dismisses her power of foresight as weak and useless, when Brynn foresees her father's death, she strikes out to loup garou territory to confront her father's future killer, Rook. She is quickly convinced that while Rook was in the vision, he will not be the killer and when a neighboring pack is slaughtered and the magus are implicated, Brynn's determined to use her visions to help to protect Rook's pack from a similar fate.There are a lot of things that I liked about Meade's new series starter. I really liked the setup of the world, the werewolf mythos with black, gray and white wolves, scheming maguses (magic users), vamps and dangerous half-breeds. And I really liked the trio of brothers, who will each get their own book, and I loved their chess inspired names: Rook, Bishop and Knight. I liked the conflict between the leads, their races are enemies and her parentage means that Rook will have to make a choice between her and the leadership role that is his destiny within the pack. And I liked both of their personal issues, he's a prodigal son who still feels like a screw up and she's a low power mage who is a second class citizen among her people. And I liked the larger conflict involving the attack on a neighboring pack, and the spillover that threatens Rook's brother.So I thought that the world building and the background story and characters were strong. The romance between Rook and Brynn, was more on the okay side - there is the instinctual draw between mates to jump start and move things between them forward in a short time span - and it just wasn't the most interesting part of the story. But, first book in a series romances are challenged by having to squeeze in around the world building, and the rest of the good stuff that Meade set up here will still have me searching out the other brothers' stories.Complementary copy via NetGalley - release day July 15