Review: Exhale by Joel Abernathy

Title: Exhale

Series: Flesh and Bone: Book One

Author: Joel Abernathy

Length: 254 Pages

Category: Fantasy, Horror

At a Glance: When considering authors whose writing and imagination I’ve loved escaping into for a while, I can now add Joel Abernathy to that prolific list. He has a voice I’ll be seeking out more of in the future.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: Two men haunted by the same ghost…

Falling for “the other man” in my marriage was never part of the plan. Then again, according to Nicolae Ursache, I am the other man, and human wedding vows don’t apply. Not to werewolves.

Nicolae is a smug, arrogant alpha male stereotype–and I do mean alpha in the literal sense–but when the same people who killed my wife kidnap my teenage daughter, he’s my only chance at getting her back. The fact that Nicolae was my wife’s rightful mate means that we share a mutual interest in bringing Ellie home, but I never could’ve imagined how he planned to do it.

I will do anything to protect my daughter. Even if it means becoming the plaything, or worse, of the man I loathe most.

====

This dark shifter romance contains material suitable for adult audiences only. It is a standalone with full resolution.

**NOTE: There is no mpreg in this universe. 18+ readers only.**

Review: Joel Abernathy (who also writes as L.C. Davis) has penned an enemies-to-lovers story in Exhale, set in an alt reality where werewolves exist. One of the welcome surprises about Abernathy’s wolves is that they aren’t humans who morph into big, fluffy canines. They aren’t civilized people in wolf form, nor are they domesticated wolves in human form, and that was on impressive display the first time Jack Mullins witnesses Alpha Nicolae Ursache transform into something monstrous. The circumstances by which Jack and Nicolae are introduced and then forced to remain together revolves around their shared connection with Francesca, Jack’s wife, and their teenage daughter, Ellie. It’d been just Jack and Ellie since Francesca was murdered…but there are things Franny had withheld from them that have now surfaced to cause no small amount of trouble. The way this matrilineal society is crafted gives readers the clear picture that even in human form, these weres have to work hard at living as and among them. They don’t subscribe much to human emotional cues, and residing in urban areas seems more a test of their strength and will power not to kill people than it is to offer them the illusion of being human themselves. This brings up a moral point in the story in relationship to their need to hunt—if their prey is the dregs of humanity, is it murder or justice? Not a new theme in fiction but always food for thought.

The hatred established between Jack and Nicolae isn’t subtle, but their forced proximity is necessary if they are to rescue Ellie from her captors. And while the way their relationships transforms isn’t spelled out in long conversations, there is plenty of foreshadowing that sets things up and details that are revealed about Jack have much to do with the werewolf society and the unnameable bond that tethers one fated mate to another, so my ability to invest in that connection was sealed thanks to the author revealing some external challenges Jack and Nicolae must face together which engaged me on an emotional level. I appreciated this because so often we readers are asked to believe in the mate bond simply because the narrative tells us to; these additional layers to the story worked in its favor.

Exhale is a self-contained novel with a solid future for Jack and Nicolae. The action, suspense and angst sets the pace at a level which made it hard to put the book down, but maybe the best compliment I can pay to Abernathy’s writing style and his ability to weave a compelling romance is that I’ve already dug into Bleed, the next book set in this world, which features Vasil, a member of the Ursache pack I fell for almost immediately, and Mason, Nicolae’s son. The secondary characters, while some, of course, are more prominent than others, each serve as more than set dressing and add more to the narrative than going through the motions of the author’s cues and directions.

There are more characters than just Vasil and Mason I’d love to see get their own book and hope Ellie’s is in the planning stages. I loved the relationship between her and Jack, and with a mother who willfully and maliciously misgendered her daughter up until the moment of her death, Jack’s love and acceptance of Ellie’s transition shone as a testament to his love for her and is realistic as well, as she’s still a teenager who acts like one with her dad, so it’s not all smooth sailing between them. I’d also like to see what new things Abernathy has yet to introduce into this world, because I don’t believe we know everything there is to know about it just yet.

And as a side note, if the horror tag is throwing you off because that’s not in your wheelhouse, I will say that it’s not there to imply a fright factor but rather more so to let readers know that among the romance there is the depiction of these werewolves in their natural habitat doing the things that werewolves do. While I didn’t find it particularly graphic or gruesome, I believe that’s why the book was thrown into the horror category.

My tendency to stalk social media paid off when I saw author Avril Ashton give this novel an offhand mention on Facebook one day. Once again I’m filing this under the category of not-much-of-a-risk since I’m a fan of Ashton’s own writing, and I’m so glad I gave it a shot because Exhale is just that good. When considering authors whose writing and imagination I’ve loved escaping into for a while, I can now add Joel Abernathy to that prolific list. He has a voice I’ll be seeking out more of in the future.

You can buy Exhale here:
[zilla_button url=”http://authl.it/B07BSP985L?d” style=”blue” size=”large” type=”round” target=”_blank”] Amazon/Kindle Unlimited [/zilla_button]