Title: Master Wolf
Series: Capital Wolves: Book Two
Author: Joanna Chambers
Publisher: Self-Published
Length: 274 Pages
Category: Historical Romance, Paranormal/Fantasy
At a Glance: Master Wolf is filled with all the anger and despair and yearning I expected, with the addition of a sacrifice that defines protecting the one you love, no matter the cost.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: HE MUST MASTER THE WOLF WITHIN…
Edinburgh, 1820. Thirty years after leaving Scotland, Drew Nicol is forced to return when the skeleton of a monster is found. The skeleton is evidence of werewolves—evidence that Marguerite de Carcassonne, the leader of Drew’s pack, is determined to suppress.
Marguerite insists that Drew accompany her to Edinburgh. There they will try to acquire the skeleton while searching for wolf-hunters—wolf hunters who may be holding one of their pack prisoner.
But Drew has reason to be wary about returning to Edinburgh—Lindsay Somerville now lives there.
Lindsay who taught Drew about desire and obsession.
Lindsay who Drew has never been able to forgive for turning him.
Lindsay who vowed to stay away from Drew twelve years ago… and who has since taken drastic steps to sever the bond between them.
Marguerite’s plan will throw Drew and Lindsay together again—and into a deadly confrontation with Lindsay’s enemy, Duncan MacCormaic. They will be tested to their limits and forced to confront both their past mistakes and their true feelings.
But it may be too late for them to repair the damage of the past. The consequences of Lindsay’s choices are catching up with him, and he’s just about out of time…
Review: Joanna Chambers’ 2019 novel Gentleman Wolf offered up one of the direst cliffhangers of the year. Its romantic leads, Lindsay Somerville and Drew Nicol, were hardly a match made in heaven, and not even a wolf’s bite and the mate bond were enough to keep them together to work through Drew’s deep-seated guilt for desiring men. Or, more imperatively, the rage and betrayal he feels over being bitten and turned without his consent. Master Wolf is the continuation of their story, and it is filled with all the anger and despair and yearning I expected, with the addition of a sacrifice that defines protecting the one you love, no matter the cost, which I didn’t expect but appreciated for its emotional impact.
What would you do in the name of love? is a question that runs throughout the story, and that question provides for much of the context in Lindsay and Drew’s relationship as well as much of the heartache that is inherent in Lindsay’s commitment to obey Drew’s demands. Drew equates his bond with Lindsay to slave and master, confuses the pull he feels towards Lindsay with abject subservience rather than the possibility that he may be experiencing natural, all-too-human feelings of affection and desire, while, at the same time, it becomes obvious that Lindsay is just as enslaved, figuratively speaking, by his love for Drew and would do anything—up to and including making an offering of himself—to prove that Drew’s needs and wants come before all else.
Drew’s fears are overwhelming, but whether or not he can overcome them becomes less of a sticking point when Lindsay offers him proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he is not chattel much less a plaything. Chambers writes every scene between them with poignancy and passion along with a sense of yearning and denial that adds a deeply heartrending tone to their narrative. Drew’s ascent into acceptance of his wolf happens while we watch Lindsay in a state of decline, leading to a tense but pivotal moment for them both.
All of the characters who are integral in Lindsay’s life return to support the story as well as to foster Drew along in his journey. The pursuit of a skeleton which is held by an underground group of hunters is an imperative in order to keep secret the existence of werewolves, though it turns into so much more than a simple plan to acquire the bones. Lindsay’s maker is also an ever clear and present danger, and the end of Duncan MacCormaic’s hunt resolves in a touching way.
The shifting backdrops between the past and the present day 1820 Edinburgh fill in the painful details of the years between Drew being bitten and his ultimate, and most critical, transformation—that being his ability to comprehend his feelings for Lindsay before it’s too late. Author Joanna Chambers writes a great historical romance, paranormal or not.
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