Review: Wolfsbane (Dark Hollow Wolf Pack 5) by Shannon West
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 2, 2013
When I open one of these paranormal romances, I'm well aware of what I have in my hands: an Alpha male/omega man story, one where the top man is "over the top" and the bottom boy is faking his submissive position well knowing that there, above the clouds, the brain is lightweighted, and the real mastermind of the relationship is the one below. It's not easy to deal with such a story, you can well fall into parody, and making it totally "bleh". I think Shannon West is good in pushing it almost to the edge, without tumbling beyond the abyss.Evan, the young Hunter, is so totally not scaring, that you really wonder how they could think to enroll him in the Hunters' army; he is young, petite, cute like a bunny, actually the right bait for a big bad wolf like Brett... only that, sincerely, neither Brett seems so scaring and bad. Brett is not an Alpha of his pack, he is a gamma wolf, an enforcer; he is strong, but he has not the coolness or cleverness to be a leader, he is a very good second hand, good to follow, ready to comply. Brett has no instinct to rebel, he doesn't feel like he is constricted if he follows the command of his Alpha; everything is good if who is in charge is someone Brett perceives as a leader, as someone who is rightly atop of him in the hierarchy. But when it comes down to personal relationship, Brett is old fashioned, his mate has to be a pet, someone Brett can cherish but also order around.At first Even fits the bill, he is a young, nave man, driven more by his instinct than his brain; but as soon as he is "freed" by the constricting society he is living in, as soon as he meets other "submissive" pets (submissive is ironic, since these men are all other than submissive), he realizes he has a huge power in his hands, he is the one who can lead their relationship.This is a specific, and popular, genre, I would even say a subgenre of the paranormal romance; it's not really realistic, it's about playing with the "top from the bottom" theme, as I said, pushing this them almost to the limit. You can totally love it, or you can hate it, but it has to be said, there is a market for it.