Review: Another fun story from Stormy!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 1, 2013
I have a weakness for Stormy Glenn stories, and this one fills the bill very nicely. It's a new variation on the classic shifter romances she's written about before, with just enough differences to breath some new life into the genre.Iben is the new Alpha of a pack. He gained the title when the previous Alpha was foolish enough to challenge him thinking that since he's so short, he must be weak. As the Alpha quickly found out, Iben is an incredibly powerful shifter. The end result is that the old Alpha is no more, Iben is the new Alpha, and he must take control of the former Alpha's pack. Iben soon finds out that since the old Alpha was controlling, egotistical, sadistic, and ruthless, the pack was structured with people in command who are just as ruthless and sadistic, something that Iben will not tolerate.Zack was a low-level enforcer in the pack. Abused, beaten, and whipped for so long, he tends to believe that all Alphas are alike, using their power to get what they want and to trample over everyone else. Even though he feels an attraction to Iben, he can't help but think Iben is no different from everyone else and use his authority to take advantage of Zack. As an example, when Iben comes onto Zack, Zack wants to know if Iben is ordering him to be responsive.This creates an interesting interplay between the two characters. Deep down inside, Zack wants Iben but doesn't like feeling like he's forced to reciprocate Iben's advances. Iben wants Zack, but his strong apha nature causes him to pursue Zack aggressively, forgetting that from Zack's point of view, it would look like he's taking advantage of Zack. This creates an interesting conflict between the characters, and as anyone who reads romance knows, conflict is necessary for a good story.There are a couple things I thought could have been handled a bit better though. The story points out at times that some things are not tolerated. Using your authority to take sexual advantage of people, ruthlessly killing... these are things that the wolf council will not allow, and things that Iben will not allow either. At the same time though, the characters seem to slip into those traditional characterstics. For example, when Zack rebuffs Iben, Iben's beta asks "Do I need to kill him?" So is ruthless violence and abuses of authority tolerated or not? It's like the story wants to define this shifter world as not being as ruthless as is normally portrayed in novels, but can't help portray it like that anyway. My advice to the author would be that for future stories, if you want to create a new shifter universe that's a bit more civil, then have the characters be a bit more civil. As it is, there's just as much violence and willingness to kill offenders as there usually is, and that aspect of the genre is starting to feel a bit stale.In spite of that, the story is still greatly fun. It flows nicely, has very good character development, and is a joy to read. If you enjoy Stormy Glenn's paranormal erotic romances, you'll definitely like this one.