Title Covet Author Shawntelle Madison Cover Art --- Publisher 2012 First Printing 2012
	Title Collected Author Shawntelle Madison Cover Art --- Publisher (ebook) 2012 First Printing (ebook) 2012
	Title Kept Author Shawntelle Madison Cover Art Gene Mollica Publisher Ballantine - 2012 First Printing Ballantine - 2012
	Category Fantasy Warnings None Main Characters Natalya Stravinsky, Thorn, Nick, Abby, Heidi Main Elements Werewolves, fairies, elves, wizards, mermaids, goblins, Muses Website shawntellemadison.com

Covet

Kept

What better time of year to read about a wolf who collects Christmas ornaments?

Now I need to make a bit of a disclaimer, I haven't read the first book in the series, and there were definitely times when I wish I had, where I felt I was missing something, mainly in regard to the relationships between the characters. Not the author's fault, it's the risk one takes when jumping into a series already in progress.

I really enjoyed the collection of oddball characters in this book. A russian werewolf with OCD and a penchant for hoarding Christmas decorations. A mermaid afraid of the sea. A Muse reluctant to inspire her author. There are wizards, succubi, goblins, elves, fairies, and a really stinky male wood nymph. Definitely looked promising!

And it was at first. It starts off with a mission to save her father and turns into a mission to restore honour to her pack. I love it when authors spend time building up the rules by which her creations live and the Pack certainly have some interesting rules and histories.

But then about halfway through the book, the missions are accomplished and then things just sort of petered out for a bit. It got into the relationships between Nat and Thorn, and Nat and Nick, but somehow after all the action in the first part of the book, her going to parties and cooing over her niece seemed a rather abrupt drop in the pacing. But it picks up in the end, no worries!

There were also a few moments where I just couldn't figure out the logic in the character's head, mainly the part about Nat's reaction to how Nick saved her by using her lifeforce, almost like as if he'd raped her. Firstly, he only did it to save her life, not further his own powers or anything like that, so I'd be cool with it. Secondly, and this isn't explained and should have been, if he can take other people's life forces and use it for magic...why didn't he just suck it out of the attacking wolves and not out of Nat? As it was such a big issue in the book, it should have had an ironclad reasoning behind it.

I also have to complain about authors that beat the, well you know what, out of their characters, but those characters somehow just pop back up and win the war even though they're like missing an arm, have a concussion, a broken leg, and haven't slept in a week. I don't think Nat managed to sleep in the second half of the book, and she nearly dies like three times in those pages. It makes no sense and it makes you not care for the character, because you know no matter how badly damaged she gets, she'll still win, even if all the other bigger, badder characters, die when far less injured. At least let her take a nap to heal a bit!

I also found Thorn to be a bit of a jerk, but maybe that's because I don't know the backstory? I mean it didn't look like much of a love triangle when Nat's choice seemed obvious. But I'll blame that on missing the first book.

I'm probably not going to take the time to look up the first book in the series, nor keep up with the next installment, though I saw a prequel for free on Amazon, so maybe I'll give that a try...