My Brief Synopsis:
# of Pages (per Amazon): 185
Terra is a werewolf. Sort of.
After fleeing her pack, and abusive tyrannical father, a decade ago, Terra put her wolf in a cage deep in her mind and has not let her out since. As she says in the book, she is “packless by choice.”
Then a chance meeting in a bookstore changes everything for her when she catches the eye of an alpha, in wolf form, and his beta. Despite his initial attempt to talk to her, she flees back to her remote forest cabin, seemingly because she is not chained to the command of an alpha that isn’t hers.
The problem? While on a job for the forest service she works for, her father and bunch of his goons catch up to her – and he wants something. An heir. As it turns out, Terra’s half-brother is a “halfie” and incapable of changing, making him worth nothing to their father who needs a strong male heir who can shift.
Her choices?
1) Return home, marry a man of her father’s choosing, and produce a male heir he will form into another version of himself.
2) Teach the nephew neither of them have ever met how to shift, then deliver him to the pack to be taught the ways of the pack.
Despite being the son of her older sister, who passed away years ago, Terra expects him to be just like his grandfather and every other alpha-like male in their pack. Terrifying, threatening, and all other kinds of terrible. Her first problem? He’s not. Keith is a sweet kid. Her second problem? There’s another alpha standing in her way.
Can Terra bring herself to deliver her nephew to her father and save her hard-earned freedom? Can she resist the alpha who seems to break every alpha trait she’s ever known? Can she decide what she wants and follow through on it before it’s too late – for everyone?
What is it?
Shiftless is book 1 in the Wolf Rampant series
Release Date:
March 21, 2014
How I got it:
On Amazon – it’s currently Free
This book is a bit of a problem for me to figure out how to review it. I liked the story, quite a bit, but it falls prey to a couple of my biggest peeves as well.
Terra is intriguing right off the bat. I haven’t read of many shifters who fought their inner animal, and even fewer who manage it to the level she has. The decade long iron-clad control Terra has over her wolf leads to a complete inability for her to change, hence the title of the book. She’s completely alright with this at the beginning, until she needs her wolf on multiple occasions and she’s nowhere to be found.
This is an interesting plot point to me, but part of the reason for it nearly made me stop reading the book. Terra’s father, the alpha of their pack, is an utterly horrendous person. Completely and truly. His treatment of his daughters is despicable. It’s the kind of “relationship” that you hear so much of in the news that it’s part of what I read to escape. I can’t remotely blame either Brooke or Terra for running away at such young ages, and his final words to Terra just made it even worse. As a side note, the rampant chauvinism from within her pack made me want to pull my hair out. It drove home the point of how different Wolfie’s pack is a little too well.
I managed to push through and make it to her arriving at her bother-in-law’s house where things finally start taking a turn for the better. Wolfie and Chase are intriguing, and there’s a bit of a shift here from normal werewolf culture in that Chase is not an alpha himself like most betas are in other books. Keith and his father are wonderful people too. And we learn more and more about everyone’s backgrounds.
However, her father shows up again – I won’t say how and blow a spoiler – and Terra has to make a terrible choice between herself and Wolfie’s pack. The thought of sacrificing herself and going back within her father’s hold literally turned my stomach. The good news is, Easterling handles all this in a way that I really liked.
NOTES:
As seems to be the case pretty often lately (hence the addition at the beginning of the synopsis section), my biggest complaint about this book is the length! After the very beginning was promising, building up back story and characters, it seemed to start rushing more and more and suddenly it went from the climax to the epilogue in no time, and even that was short! This book does not end in a cliffhanger exactly, but it does leave the reader a little confused wondering what exactly is coming next, but not in the way I think a good book should. It was more frustration in the “What, what? It’s over? But what about x, y, and z? How are the changes going to be handled?” sense than the “Wow that was awesome, I can’t wait to see what happens next” style.
Amazon lists this book at a total of 185 pages. I think it would have been a much better book at at least 250 pages, if not more. It would have benefited from a developmental editor working to flesh out some ideas further. On the plus side, ?I can’t complain about the grammatical editing.
My last problem with this book is the lack of description, which would also be improved with an editor or some good beta readers. Sadly, I never got a mental image of Terra from the book outside of the cover, which did not fit how she developed in my head. I still can’t give you a great idea of what Wolfie or Chase look like even now. I know I love lots of details, but this had too few for me by a long shot.
Will I continue the series?
Terra’s story continues in Book 2 where it talks about her being the first female alpha in living memory, where she has to face a bunch of opposing male alphas who are looking to gain power – presumably by absorbing her pack into theirs.
Why she and her mate have this problem at all when they’re combining two packs kind of blows my mind, especially with who the strongest of the opposing alphas is. I honestly really want to know what happens, but Book 2 is $2.99 for another 186 page story and Book 3 is $3.99 for 198 pages – all of which I expect to have some of the same issues as this one. I find it a little difficult to pay the same price for a 185 page book as I do for one that’s over 500, especially going into it expecting to be frustrated.
All-in-all, I can’t decide if I’m going to read further even though I’m really curious to see if Terra ever gets her Happily Ever After.
Final Thoughts:
This is a good story idea that needs some additional fleshing out. Some of the characters are really hard to stomach, while others are wonderful. Since this book is free I would say it’s worth the read, but expect to have some frustration wanting more from it, and the author, despite the good concept.
How to find it:
Amazon
Goodreads (Includes links to other sellers)
Find Aimee Easterling:
Fangs & Femmes 