The Wolf and His Witch!

This is my second book by Alisa Woods, and l'm really enjoying her world building skills. I've listen too quite a few shifter stories over the years, but this is my first wolf shifter who mates a witch, it was a surprising good plot with interesting characters.

Olivia stumbles upon Jaxson when she saves him from being attacked in his wolf form. What she didn't realize, Jaxson had his attackers just right where he wanted them, but he can't fault Olivia for trying to do the right thing. He's investigating why shifters are disappearing. There's an immediate attraction, and pull between them. When Jaxson learns she is looking for a job, he hires her to be his secretary, and to help him find a mate between several eligible shifter candidates. Being the alpha, he is expected to take a mate. His wolf pushes him to mate Olivia; however, he is really just trying to delay mating, and an excuse to spend more time around Olivia. He is keeping a dangerous secret which is the real reason he doesn't want to take a mate.

Jaxson isn't the only one with a dangerous secret. When Olivia was younger, and just coming into her witch powers, something horrible happened, and now she is ate up with guilt. When she learns the truth about Jaxson, and why he doesn't want to take a mate, she puts a plan in motion to free Jaxson from the curse, so he can finally mate. She really comes to care for Jaxson, and is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Dougles and Delisha both did a great job on the narration.

I won a free copy of this audio from the author, and enjoyed it. I liked how this plot uses magic, and it kinda reminded me of the Mercy Thompson world, just not as long, or descriptive, and with dual POV's. For being on the shorter side, it was good, well developed, and really peaked my interest and wanting to listen to the other character's stories.

10 people found this helpful

3.5 "Spell Defying Love" Story/4.5 Narration Stars

Any additional comments?

3.5 "Spell Defying Love" Stars for the story and 4.5 Stars for the narration.

Reminiscent of a fairy tale like UF/PNR tale, Jaxon is an interesting, quick (just under 6 hours) tale. The debut of the River Pack Wolves Series appears to be laying down the framework for a band of shifter brothers who each have their own secret reasons for being unable to take on a mate and thus assume the alpha role for the pack, even as each book in the series tells the journey of how one brother finds his love match.

The underlying UF/PNR plot in Jaxson is fairly standard (shifters and witches that generally conform to many of the basic UF/PNR conventions we have become accustomed to in shifter/witch romances). In that regard, the witches are notorious for wanting to take on shifters as love slaves and thus feared and generally hated by the shifters--meanwhile a shifter's bite can be dangerous to a witch. Layered into this background relationship is a suspense conflict that evolves around an unknown threat against the shifters. Werewolves are slowly disappearing and the River Pack Wolves, who run a security firm, have been engaged to try and solve the threat.

Jaxson is presumed to be the only River Pack brother that can take on a mate and therefore is the current presiding alpha of the River Pack Wolves. Jaxson, however, is hiding a secret that he believes gives him at most one year to fulfill the political objectives he has for the pack since he can never mate.

It is with this backdrop in place that Jaxson meets Olivia Lilyfield, a woman he believes to be human, but who is hiding her own deep dark secrets. Jaxson doesn't understand why he has such a strong magnetic reaction to Olivia, but though he hires her under the guise of being his mate matchmaker (the person who is supposed to find Jaxson his mate), he can't help but feel the strongest attraction for Olivia. An attraction that Olivia feels just as keenly. But can there possibly be a HEA in the future for Jaxson and Olivia when secrets loom in the midst and danger lurks around the corner?

Enhancing the overall effect of the story is the well performed narration by Dougles Berger and Delisha Forest. Mr. Berger performs the chapters from Jaxson's perspective and Ms. Berger the ones from Olivia's. This style generally works well for this story giving the listener a clear differentiation between the POV being shared.

Mr. Berger and Ms. Forest are also generally adept at producing differentiated voices for each character, although Mr. Berger provides less differentiation among his characters, but nonetheless I had no trouble distinguishing the speaker in the dialogue scenes. Additionally, both narrators do a good job of acting out the mood of each scene.

Jaxson generally held my attention. Perhaps my only observation is that the romance between the hero and heroine had a bit of a love at first sight form of attraction to it. Given the natural animosity between wolves and witches--not to mention Jaxson's need to find a mate to remain as the alpha leader for his pack--I would have expected a little more conflict prior to the resolution on this point. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the fairy tale quality of the underlying UF/PNR suspense plot which held my attention throughout the entire listen.

Source: Review copy provided in exchange for an honest review.

4 people found this helpful

Jaxson

I am always looking for a good shifter book. This series is going to be about these three brothers. I really enjoyed Jaxson’s story. I like that humans know about shifters it really saved a lot of world-building for the reader and the shock that the heroine would get when she finds out the man she falls for isn’t human. ;) So yay for not having to go through all that. I am not much of a witch person but I liked how it was woven into this story it was subtle and worked. Olivia seems kind of meekish but she will show you her backbone and I liked that. She is stronger than you think. The interactions with her and her aunt will show you that. I am intrigued by the other two brothers. This book had the romance element but I was missing the chemistry the underlying sexual tension. Still, it was a good story. And the narration was good.

7 people found this helpful

Okay

Setting: Seattle Contemporary Genre: Paranormal romance Olivia Lilyfield has the hots for wolf-shifter Jaxson Rivers, and the feeling is mutual (at least on his wolf’s part). But there are a couple of things working against them. First, Wolves absolutely hate witches because they kill female shifters to steal their magic. And Jaxson has a specific and personal reason to hate witches beyond that species (?) prejudice. And that reason precludes him from taking a mate. And Olivia is a half-witch. Granted, she doesn’t practice, hasn’t even studied since the death of her parents when she was 12, but she really, really isn’t going to share her family background with the man she’s falling for, and who just hired her as an office assistant. To add to the relationship complications, Wolves from packs in the Seattle area are going missing, and the River Pack Security company Jaxson and his brothers run are responsible for rescuing the missing wolves and shutting the operation down. Isn’t the cover art on this book delightful? I mean, yummy, right? As to the inside... The writing is good, as in no glaring grammatical or usage errors, and the dialogue moves the plot along — though I found the internal worrying at problems a little much. Less thinking, more action please! Character development is okay, but I will admit that I wasn’t in love with either the heroine or hero. The relationship developing between Olivia and Jaxson is as slow and tame as an old pony. In other words, not very explicit, so if the erotica is why you read the shifter subgenre, you won’t find a whole lotta sex here. There is some, but this is by no means an insta-lust kind of story. There is a subplot about Wolves from Seattle era packs going missing that is actually a little more compelling than the relationship conflict. Someone — possibly the government? — is kidnapping Shifters for nefarious reasons. Though that plot has been done betterby other authors, it was interesting enough to keep my interest. Although there is no cliffhanger, the resolution of that issue will likely happen over the course of the next two books about the other Rivers brothers. But I didn’t fall in love with the other brothers’ backstories, so I probably won’t continue with the series. Probably. The trilogy is in the Audible Escape collection, so maybe... The narration was alright. I mean, each narrator did a creditable job, but I did not like the style of the performance. Ms Forest would voice Olivia’s lines in the midst of Mr. Berger’s performance of Jaxson’s narrative, and vice versa. I found it disconcerting.

2 people found this helpful

To much romance

I love a good romance as much as the next girl but I also want a good story. It’s like 2 minutes in they are hot and heavy for each other. The tension between them seems forced. Not enough world building and character progression for my taste. To much romance and not much else.

2 people found this helpful

Not what I expected!

I wasn't expecting this book to be as good as it was. It started out too be a little slow and I almost gave up on it. My stubborn side won out and I'm so glad it did. This ended up being a great book and I'm so glad I stuck with it.

1 person found this helpful

Very good, happy ending

This is a very good story, I’m just not a big fan of the main female characters when they don’t feel like they are worthy and the male could never possibly actually want them.

Eh

It was ok. There were elements that I liked, but overall, it was just ok. It was kind of corny really. I only like the insta-love if it can be explained by some higher knowing of dated mates or something like that. But these people met and mated for life all within the span of less than a week. And they barely knew anything about each other, they really didn’t spend a whole lot of time together. This story didn’t wow me, but it was a good one to listen to while passing time doing house work.

The Start of a good series

This story has strong characters each with all of the Their own conflict to overcome. A HEA and strong foundation for the books to follow. If you like romance, shifters and former military you will enjoy this story.

Stupid

This story is so light that it doesn’t even qualify as fluff. Absolute drivel. Narration is fine. Not exceptional, but decent. The story is so bad, though.