Audio Review: Off the Beaten Path by Cari Z. ~ Narrated by Jack Wesley

Title: Off the Beaten Path

Author: Cari Z.

Narrator: Jack Wesley

Run Time: 6 hours and 23 minutes

Category: Paranormal, Shifters

At a Glance: Jack Wesley did a very good job with the story, changing his voice appropriately, in a way that the characters were easily separated. 3 stars for this nice and interesting story that, sadly, lacked depth.

Reviewed By: Ky

Blurb: When Ward Johannsen’s little girl Ava shifted into a werewolf, she was taken into custody by the feds and shipped off to the nearest pack, all ties between father and daughter severed. Ward burned every bridge he had discovering her location, and then almost froze to death in the Colorado mountains tracking her new pack down. And that’s just the beginning of his struggle.

Henry Dormer is an alpha werewolf and an elite black ops soldier who failed his last mission. He returns home, hoping for some time to recuperate and help settle the pack’s newest member, a little pup named Ava who can’t shift back to her human form. Instead he meets Ward, who refuses to leave his daughter without a fight. The two men are as different as night and day, but their respect for each other strikes a spark of mutual interest that quickly grows into a flame. They might find something special together—love, passion, and even a family—if they can survive trigger-happy pack guardians, violent werewolf politics, and meddling government agencies that are just as likely to get their alpha soldiers killed as bring them home safely.

Review: Off the Beaten Path is an interesting paranormal story with shifters. In the world the author created to host her characters, shifters are forced to live mostly isolated from humans in an effort to minimize the possibility of them ‘turning’ someone. The packs are extremely restricted and everything they do is monitored by the government. The werewolves are thought of as less than humans, as a subspecies that should be contained. It was very hard to read about the way they were forced to live.

Ward and Henry, the MCs, weren’t true mates or destined to be together or anything like that. They were just attracted to each other and decided to do something about that. I wasn’t expecting such a simple connection between the MCs in a shifter books and was pleasantly surprised by it. Even though the story had good bones, ultimately the execution was very simple. There were a lot of things going on, but everything was getting resolved very quickly and effortlessly. Every problem, every situation was explored only on the surface and the characters never delved deeper. It was dealt with and they moved on with minimal effort, and that was that. I would have liked a bit more conflict, more effort on the characters’ parts before everything fell into place.

I listened to the audio version of this book, narrated by Jack Wesley. He did a very good job with the story, changing his voice appropriately, in a way that the characters were easily separated, and he even managing to provide a French accent for one of them. He was speaking clearly and there never was any problem with understanding him.

You can buy Off the Beaten Path here:
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