Review: Wolf Signs

Wolf Signs
Vivian Arend
Paranormal Romance
Granite Lake Wolves/Book 1
B&N Free In-Store Read

From the author's website ~

Robyn Maxwell doesn’t care that her brother has to cancel out on their back country ski trip. She can do it alone. The fact she’s deaf doesn’t make her survival skills any weaker. The chance to get away from it all and relax in the Yukon wilderness is just what she’s been craving.

Meeting wilderness guide Keil at the cabin starts cravings of another kind. Keil’s one hot hunk of ripped, tasty male. Now she has to deal with raging hormones as well as strange questions about wolves and mates and challenges to the death.

Keil was trying for a nice reflective retreat before challenging for the Alpha position of his Alaskan pack. He wasn’t planning on meeting the woman destined to be his mate, or finding out she’s not aware she has the genes of a wolf.

Between dealing with his accident-prone younger brother, a deaf mate with an attitude and an impending duel to the death, his week—and his bed—is suddenly full.

Far from the relaxing getaway any of them had in mind…

Warning: Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘talking with your hands.’ Includes dangerous use of sarcasm and hot nookie in a remote wilderness sauna.

If you noticed the info at the top, this was a free in-store read for my nook™. One of the latest upgrades for the nook™ was one hour of free in-store reading per day. The selection is varied from NY Times bestsellers to shorter, sub-genres like erotica. I picked Arend's because I'd heard good things about her writing. I saw this as the perfect opportunity to try it.

One of the first things that's different is the heroine is deaf. I'm always curious as to how an author will portray someone with a disability. Will they play up the disability and make it the focal point of the character? Or will they downplay it and make the character more than her disability? In this case Robyn Maxwell doesn't let her deafness slow her down. Nor does she let it define her. I really liked that about her. She doesn't take shit from anyone either. And she is far from helpless. Sure, she has to deal with situations differently because of her deafness but it doesn't deter her from doing what she wants to. Which is why she goes on the skiing trip alone.

Keil and his brother TJ are not as surprised at having company at the cabin as they are that their company is a woman alone. Good thing for Robyn that these two brothers are gentlemen, sort of. They are in fact werewolves. When Keil realizes Robyn is his mate he has to figure out how to tell her without totally freaking her out. It takes some doing and convincing but eventually they come to an understanding. It must have been the pheromones or the short length of the story but, Robyn and Keil got hot and heavy pretty quick.

TJ is like the Scooby-Doo of the werewolves. He's cute, he's lovable and he's a bit of a goof. His skiing ability is more of an attacking the slopes and barreling down the mountain as opposed to actually skiing down. He's lost three pairs of skis this season much to his brother's embarrassment. I thought it was cute to have a werewolf that was not an over-the-top alpha. He was formidable while in his wolf form but a bit of a klutz in human form.

The romance between Robyn and Keil is there but again, happens fairly quickly. Robyn was a little too trusting of Keil and TJ. I mean, good grief, they're werewolves! She's alone in an isolated cabin with them. How does she really know what they'll do to her? She questions them about their "werewolfness" but pretty much takes them at their word regarding her safety with them. Robyn and Keil connect fast and fall into lust fast. Everything happens pretty quickly.

Overall, a decent werewolf meets mate story. There seemed to be too much going on for such a short story. I would have preferred the story concentrate on the romance and not so much on the pack drama. I do plan to read book 2, Wolf Flight. The e-books are inexpensive and quick reads.

Rating: B-