Review: Felt like sitting around the camp fire
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 11, 2012
Wolf Tracker is the third book in a series about a group of women who`ve crashed with a plane, landing 50 years in the future in a country with almost no women.The first two books areSleeping With The WolfandWolf's Glory. I haven`t read the first one, but the second book made me look forward to Wolf Tracker and I was thrilled when I noticed it had been published.Wolf Tracker is about Tami and Tracker aka Dan Stensrud. Tami used to make a living teaching people how to survive in the wilderness and her survival skills are her rescue when she escapes four men who all claim to have married her - thinking it gives them the right to rape her. These four men hire Tracker to find her and though she makes it hard for him to find her, he succeeds after a while. When he gets to know her he realizes there is more to the story than her husband missing her - which was what one of the four men told Tracker when he hired him.I`m not sure how much of Tami`s story is mentioned in the first book in this series. There are some mentions in the second. I still think it`s fully possible to read this book without having read any of the first two books. I know I didn`t find it hard to read the second book without having read the first.WOlf Tracker had a camp fire feeling to it. The tone of voice and the quiet way the story was told made me feel good while reading. I also liked how we never got many details about the rapes and that they weren`t sensationalized. It happened and Tami deals with it. She is not one for loud and audible break downs but rather working her way through it without so many words. In that way she is the perfect partner for Tracker who is also a man of few words (and on a personal note - I loved how he was half Norwegian-American. A lot of guys are like him here).There are so many ways of getting through the an ordeal like the one Tami has been through and I felt the book dealt with it in a respectful manner. I also found the description of the characters very credible. They came alive through out the story and one wanted things to end up well for them. Their growing love for one another, building on trust for Tami`s part, was a very nice read.This book did not have the intensity of the book about Shadow and Glory but that`s because Tami and Tracker are different from the more emotional Shadow and Glory. Intensity wouldn`t have fit them as they were more silent types. It was still nice to see how their love grew without words. Very sweet!So why not the five stars?I really enjoyed the book and will recommend it. But there were a few things that made me give it four stars instead of five.First of all I thought there was a little too much telling instead of showing. "She felt frightened" makes such a smaller impact than describing what the fear is doing to her.Second of all I do find it a bit annoying how all the men in the clan, apart from one very minor character who sleeps around even though he`s married, are so incredibly perfect and can never do wrong against women.Third of all I also find the whole basis thing of women being protected and men being the protectors tedious. Why can`t the women help out in the fights? The way the women reacted in one crucial scene was just silly.I`m looking forward to the fourth book in the series but I`m biting my nails too. I hated how Sherry (the heroine in the next book as I understand it) was bullied in this book because she didn`t fall instantly in love with the man who wanted to be her mate. She`d just lost the husband she loved - why would she fall for anyone else? And why would people call her mean for not falling for him? Feelings are feelings and you are not obliged to love someone just because he loves you. But Maddy Barone doesn`t seem to be the kind of author who makes her heroines love her heroes without reason so I will trust her enough and buy the next book too.