I say that like I know what I’m talking about. I don’t. I was simply running off a ton of steam one day when I was around eleven and bam! Okay, not quite that easy or fast but it happened when I was young and stupid. I’m also gay. I say that like I know what I’m talking about with that too. I simply don’t.
I’m grown up now and living in the big city which has me too busy to much care about either one of those things. I get out and run my wolf when I can, trying like hell to stay out of the local pack’s territories. Belonging to a “family” just sounds like too much work, and honestly I don’t have time for such things. Besides, I was told when I was young the color of my wolf was all wrong. Too silver...or something. Metallic. I kinda thought it looked cool in the full moon. “Pack Alpha would kill ya soon as look at ya.” My grandpa used to say. Course he wasn't my real grandpa. Just an old man who lived down the street, but he was a shifter too and I thought he knew it all. He probably knew diddly either, but a guy can’t be too careful. And romance? Way off the radar.
Only now someone has started killing wolves. Started leaving broken bodies lined up in a nice little row next to the high school in my home town and it's got me to thinking. If a shifter is killed in his or her wolf state, do they stay that way? Were these dead wolves like me? The hell of it all is this: being a shifter isn't common knowledge. It bothers me enough that now I want to find out more. See if there's anything I can do. Kind of like a super hero.
Oh yeah. Probably forgot to tell you this too. I can turn invisible.
Yep, Ghost Wolf to the rescue.
Once upon a time, there was a ginger who thought shifter books were odd and icky. Then one day, the ginger picked up a shifter book and fell in love with the dynamics and fell head over feet for the fated mate trope. This book, it has fated mates and a whole lot more that made the ginger ridiculously happy.
Okay, now that I am done talking about myself in creepy third person, I LOVED THIS BOOK!
The blurb is amazing and had me wanting to read it immediately. A dude who is a shifter but doesn’t know much about his shifting but shifted at 11 and there are people killing wolves… say what? I had to know it all and opening the book and getting Trevor’s POV has me sucked in immediately.
I liked that we get to know a young 11 year old Trevor Taland and how he handled his first shift, not knowing that he was a shifter and all the questions he had with no one to ask them to. Then he meets the wolf/old man who becomes his “Grandpa” and the stories and warnings he gives Trevor are ominous. But when he loses his Grandpa and gets the gift the old man leaves for him, Trevor gets something almost as amazing as shifting into a wolf, Trevor learns he can become invisible.
We don’t dally in Trevor’s youth but take what we learned and are now with him as an adult, enrolled in college and working as much as he can to pay the bills. He still shifts and gets his run on when he can and a night out with friends to unwind is ordered so Trevor can relax for a few. Too bad there is one hell of a sexy man who catches Trevor’s eye and scent at the club who is also an Alpha of a local pack and needs to have a few words with Trevor about the way he leaves his presence in open spaces.
I adored Ryan so, so, so much. Seeing him simply as a hot dude at the club then getting him confronting Trevor for quite literally peeing all over what’s his was fun but when Ryan realizes that Trevor is his fated mate, I was a goner. I have to say there are certain books and certain shifters that hold the bar for me when it comes to Alphas and how they act. One who is quite frankly at the top is Logan Church from Mary Calmes’ Change of Heart series and let me just say, Ryan Jarfang echoes Logan in many ways. The way he treats his pack, the way he treats his family, the way he even treats the woman he will leave for his fated mate, he is respectful and just in his actions. But the way he treats Trevor from the second he scents and feels that Trevor is his fated mate is what did me in. You see, Ryan isn’t gay nor is his bisexual but labels don’t matter when it comes to mates. The fates have chosen Trevor for Ryan and that’s all he needs to know. Because fated mates want what they want and oh my goodness do they want it badly.
Now while this is fated mates and we get all the goodies that come with that, I loved that Trevor knows basically nothing about being a shifter or shifter politics so he is pretty damn stubborn about what he is going to do with his love life and life in general. He knows that his wolf feels the pull toward Ryan as his mate and that he wants Ryan in every way but Trevor has a few secrets he hasn’t told anyone and Trevor is packless. Yeah, the first shifter book I have read where the wolf doesn’t have a pack and that puts a wrinkle in a few starched places.
The legend of the Ghost Wolves and the Ghost Moon was new to me and I enjoyed how it was told. The author does a wonderful job of giving you the needed information without weighing you down or making it feel like a shifter manual. Each aspect of the story is given in a way that makes you feel part of the story as you are woven into this world where men can change into wolves and live in a society all their own while being ride outside every human’s peripheral vision. Part of a world with mating rituals that involve a chase, submission and public mating. *ahem* Phew, it just got hot in here.
Oh boy. I feel the rambling tingling through my fingers so I am going to attempt to not let it run wild. I loved that this book has a lot going on, it gives you a lot packed in with the romance and yet it wasn’t too much. I will admit that while the blurb does talk about the killing of the wolves etc. the mystery is not the focus of this book, Ryan and Trevor are and that makes a huge difference to me. We still get the mystery of it all and it wasn’t what I expected. We still get secrets, truths and a bit more at the end that had me literally howling with laughter and surprise because they came out of nowhere but were perfect. We have mating and biting - No knotting *pouts* - declaration of MINE and the all-encompassing lust that only fated mates can bring so this book is a winner any way you look at it.
