URBAN FANTASY REVIEW: Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs

 

Cry Wolf

by Patricia Briggs
Narrated by Holter Graham
Series: Alpha and Omega, Book 1
Published July 29th 2008 by Ace
RATING:★★★

This series is set in the same world as the Mercy Thompson Series, but on a slightly earlier time line. It begins with a novella titled Alpha and Omega published in the On the Prowl anthology. The decision to continue the story was made after the anthology had already been published, which has caused some confusion, since "book 1" is a actually a continuation of the short story. The series has plenty of action, but there's more emphasis on the romantic attraction between the hero and heroine. On a romance-readers scale, this series is sweet rather than steamy.

REVIEW:


I highly recommend reading the novella Alpha and Omega before reading Cry Wolf. You will get a better feel for Anna's character and why hers and Charles' relationship is a little strained. And since the novella really reads like the first couple of chapters of Cry Wolf this review is going to be over both.

I'm a fan of Briggs's Mercy Thompson Series, so I decided to give the Alpha and Omega series a try. The timeline in both series over lap and I meet a few of the characters in A&O while reading MT.

In Alpha and Omega, after Anna's forced change into a werewolf three years ago she is living an abused life with her current pack in Chicago. She can no longer stay silence to the acts that are taking place in the pack and contacts Bran, the North American leader of the werewolf nation. Bran sends his son Charles to see what is going on. Charles meets Anna and recognizes her as an Omega wolf and his mate. Charles helps out with the pack problem in Chicago and with the help of his father they get Anna agree to return to their home in Montana. That's where Cry Wolf picks up.

Once in Montana, Anna is still dealing emotional pain from her life with the Chicago pack. She and Charles wolves are attracted to one another but the human sides are taking it much slower. Anna was kept ignorant of many werewolf ways in her last pack so she is learning as she goes. Charles has never really had a love life so he is new to the mating idea as well.

The two go into the deep woods of Montana in order to help solve the case of a rouge werewolf that has  killed at least once and attacked others. Charles would rather leave Anna behind to protect her but Bran tells Charles to take her with him so that they can have some alone time to get to know each other and he believes that Anna's effects of being an Omega could help bring the rouge in with a fight.

Once the pair gets into the case of the rouge they are meet with more than they bargained for. Their is a dark witch in the woods and she has plans for revenge on one of Charles' pack mates. After some life and death moments the two comes out a stronger mated pair. But I positive that we will still some of Anna's past abuse get between the two in the next book, Hunting Ground.

I really enjoyed this Mercy spin off story and I look forward to reading the next book. And I do mean READING the next book. I checked out the audio book from the library to give me something to listen to in the car and at work. I didn't really care for the narration by Holter Graham. He never really changed his voice for the different characters. It made it a little hard at times to know who was speaking. I think if I had read Cry Wolf I would have given it another star since I really enjoyed reading Alpha and Omega.

Cry Wolf is available at:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble 

I downloaded my audio copy from my local library.