Jace has always felt as though he doesn’t belong, that he’s surplus to requirements, alone and destined to stay that way for the rest of his life. His love for Louie, his true mate, is solid and real, but Louie has never shown Jace that they’re mates, has never given any indication that he wants them to be together. Jace is convinced that fate has got things wrong in pairing them—until a stranger arrives on pack land, throwing everything into chaos.
Louie has lived his whole life keeping his distance from Jace—and his emotions. He loves the man with a passion, but knowing Jace might be taken away from him at any moment means Louie has kept his mouth shut. Jace was found on the side of the road as a cub by their alpha, Sergeant, and Louie has always known that one day Jace’s true family will come back to claim him. To save Jace having to make a painful decision—leave Louie or join his family—Louie remained in the shadows.
But life has a way of changing things, and with the stranger comes knowledge of some terrible things happening on another wolf compound. Things that the Highgate pack feel compelled to fix. The question is, will Jace and Louie mating also change things, or will they remain the same as they’ve always been, forever circling around their love and never admitting it through fear of being hurt?
Reader Advisory: This book is best read in sequence as part of a series.
Debut author Sydney Presley introduces werewolf suspense(?) in Jace's Justice. Jace is a 25 year old orphan that is in love with his friend, Louie, a fellow shifter. He is afraid to tell his friend that their are fated mates (Though if it's fated...would it already be known since it's fate? *shrugs*) and tries to keep his feelings a secret. Jace doesn't know his past but his past comes to surprise and comes with a bite that Jace, Louie and their pack has to help solve/defeat.
This story was rough going for me since the best thing about Jace's Justice was seeing the words: The End.
The story peaked at 19%.
What happens for the other 81%? A lot of redundancy.
The scenes were clunky, there are too many over explanations of a scene that just happened by the main characters and this was all telling not a hint of showing.
An example:
"What are you thinking?"Why ask if you're going to tell anyway? And this is coming from a 25 year old man? He sounds like a teen girl. Also, this sentence could have been edited down to cut out the nonsensical pondering. This is just a slice of what this story is peppered with.
"Shit you probably wouldn't want to know," Jace said. "I keep thinking that, yea, I love you--somehow, I don't know where that came from, it's always been there--but I've been brought up with you, so maybe I just would. But then there's the fact that I've never let anyone in, never allowed myself to love anyone but you, so I must love you, right?"
There were sections and phrases phrases didn't jibe which just read more like a chore rather than pleasure.
Examples?
Like a one day old wolf can walk/crawl and hide? Survive without its mother for a day? I can't believe a day old wolf can remember it's kidnapping and was able to hide. *smh* I was able to find out facts about infant wolves in less than 10 seconds on the internet. Here's a link. Baby wolves are blind and deaf and a whole list of other things that disproves this major plot point.
A little research can help sometimes.
Or the fact that this author clearly does not know anything about BDSM and introduced a D/s FAIL couple in secondary characters Vann and Kip. Just because a "big" man orders a smaller man around and tells him when to eat, etc does not a Dom make. A pet peeve of mine is when a guy orders someone around and they automatically get labeled as a Dom. It's just insulting all round. Or I guess I should have just accepted this explantion as why Kip was treated the way he was:
"You need to understand that Kip'll only do stuff when Vann says so. It's a lifestyle choice, so don't go thinking Vann's an asshole, right?"I'm not a BDSM expert but a little research might go a long way in the future.
Another thing that surprised me was the setting, until the characters mention being in Texas, I though this was a British paranormal. I wish a content editor went through this so it actually read like it was set in America. There were odd phrases that were not American.
Oh and a kiss of death when reading romance for me is when the main character is called perfect...it proves to be a hard task to prove the character is actually perfect when you can find too many parts that show they aren't.
I will not be following any more of this series. It's a safe bet I won't knowingly read more from this author. It's not a match. This can appeal to a reader who might not really care about werewolves and just want a beginning, middle and end. No real plot delivery and a story that reads more like a first draft. This was drawn out uninteresting thoughts, too much filler and not enough substance for me.
I can't in good conscience recommend this to anyone.
Good luck to the author in future endeavors.
