A Wolf Apart by Maria Vale

A Wolf Apart by Maria Vale
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Genre: Contemporary, Paranormal
Length: Full length (352 pages)
Heat Level: Spicy
Rating: 4.5 stars
Reviewed by Xeranthemum

Can a human truly make room in her heart for the Wild?
Thea Villalobos has long since given up trying to be what others expect of her. So in Elijah Sorensson she can see through the man of the world to a man who is passionate to the point of heartbreak. But something inside him is dying…
So long as on line cialis discover to find out more they protect their monopoly to sell the branded drugs in the US, they can all basically help you choose a real treatment for erectile dysfunction or penis enhancement. Hyperactivity can be a illness seen as an generico cialis on line damaged brain function. Is it really tadalafil price in india icks.org Safe? Say whether you plan to do love. The herbs which are used in making this kind of product can make purchase cialis view address now.
Elijah Sorensson has all kinds of outward success: bespoke suits, designer New York City apartment, women clamoring for his attention. Except Elijah despises the human life he’s forced to endure. He’s Alpha of his generation of the Great North Pack, and the wolf inside him will no longer be restrained…

If I didn’t know the author was female, I would have sworn I was reading a book penned by a guy. A Wolf Apart is told in first person POV, the hero, Elijah, and it’s done really, really well. Guys think and speak differently and the parts where Elijah talks to himself made me believe I was in his head.

When the hero is in the human world, he talks disjointed, like he’s ticking off boxes on a checklist of things to do, to wear, to say in order to be human, to come across as successful and part of the movers and shakers in human society. I’ll admit that the first couple of chapters were hard going for me. There were all these words that are endemic to pack society but are out of place in my simple human mind, so it bogged down the pace. I encourage readers to stick with it, to plow through because once Elijah meets Thea, the focus, pace and intent of the novel changes, all to the good.

In the beginning, the hero came across as a jerk, a player and a user of women. It’s explained why and I understood that Elijah had reached a crossroads in his life, but I still didn’t like him very much. Until Thea. There are too many times during the novel that I felt that she was more than what she seemed. Well, she kind of is, but differently than I anticipated. It played well. The author didn’t show me a romance filled with the typical tropes and I really liked how Ms. Vale painted her heroine – strong, individual, smart and loyal with a quiet dignity I appreciated. I liked Thea’s effect on Elijah and how pivotal a role she played in saving the hero from a fate he felt he was powerless to escape. There’s a power to their courtship that comes alive and I enjoyed the scenes when they were together.

Even though I labeled this novel as ‘spicy’, it’s only because the hero is pretty graphic with his description of his … physical reaction and subsequent addressing of his needs when it comes to being with a female. There are descriptive words and all that but the strength of the romance didn’t come from bedroom gymnastics but from his internal dialogue. Oh, wait; there is the scene where Thea turns the tables on Elijah in an unusual manner. But it wasn’t bedroom scenes that I focused on, it was the fact that the author’s goal was to tell a story with a plot and that was the primary goal, not how many times and how far to push the envelope during sex scenes. A Wolf Apart has a higher standard of storytelling and I liked it. The romance was strong, effective and the process was exciting and fraught with peril.

This was a really good read and once I got into the groove, I couldn’t put it down. It was so incredibly refreshing to find an author that could take a well-loved paranormal genre and infuse it with her personal creative input to make it her own. If paranormal fans are looking for something unique, give this book a whirl. It’s amazing.