Shadow of the Wolf

Title:  Shadow of the Wolf

Author:  Dana Marie Bell

Publisher:  Samhain Publishing

Publisher URL:  www.samhainpublishing.com

ISBN/BIN:  978-1-61921-095-0

Genre:  {M/F}, Paranormal, Shape-shifters, Series

Rating: 4 Nymphs

Literary Nymphs Reviewer:  Amazon Nymph

Alannah’s car stalls on the road returning from a party for one of her friends.  This happens about a month after Christopher casts his spell for his mate to come to him.  Both are very surprised by each other’s magical persuasion.

The first story in the Heart’s Desire series was both humorous and a good suspense story.  Shadow of the Wolf follows two families that are on opposite sides of the magical power spectrum.  Christopher is a wizard and Alannah is a witch.  Christopher’s brothers and Alannah’s grandmother find a lot of humor in the situation, even though it causes some problems for both when Cole tries to harm them.

I was laughing at the relationship between the brothers, as most of us with siblings will find this very familiar.  I loved Alannah’s grandmother and the way she was.  The author threw in a few interesting quirks about both families. One problem I had was that it took a little too long to tell us about Cole and why he was so bad.  I would have liked a little more information about Cole’s family and hope as this series progresses, we learn more as they seem to be a constant thorn in the Beckett family’s side.  We are all familiar with family feuds and how bad they can be because of the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s.

I was a little surprised by the author’s knowledge and stressed some core beliefs of witches, especially the ‘three-fold law’.  It was also interesting how she showcased the differences between witches, wizards and warlocks within the story.

Ms. Bell is a new author for me and I am looking forward to more about the Beckett family in the future, especially how things are going to affect Zach.