Review: No Matter What by Sydney Presley

They must protect each other. No matter what.

Quinn has resigned himself to living a life alone. His cabin, on the outskirts of a village, is the perfect place for him to paint. No distractions, lots of peace and quiet—until he goes out for a run as a wolf and sees another wolf scarpering for its life.

Goddard is that wolf. He’s been running for God knows how long, and he’s tired of looking over his shoulder, waiting to be found by the one man Goddard doesn’t want finding him. Injured, he discovers a cabin and goes inside.

Quinn’s and Goddard’s lives are changed forever when they realize they are bonded mates. The thing is, there’s still the problem of the man from Goddard’s past to get over, and when an incident in the village means Goddard’s whereabouts is public knowledge, things might take a nasty turn.

Gone are the days when the two men had to stick by human law. Being mated means wolf law comes first—and if it means killing to keep each other safe, then that’s what they’re prepared to do. They must protect each other. No matter what.

*** I am going to start this off with the warning that this book has on page killing of a woman and children and is done so not as wolves. It’s told in flashback but I felt it was important for anyone who could be affected by reading the scene. ***

Quinn left the busy city life that he knew to live out in the remote country. The stress of hiding the secret of his wolf was becoming too much and the quiet country life with just him and his art was appealing. When he has a restless night and decides to let his wolf run to exhaust him to sleep, he comes across wolf being hunted by his farmer neighbor and tries to help. The wolf evades Quinn but ends up naked and shifted back into human form on Quinn’s kitchen floor and this is how we meet Goddard.

Told from the dual POV of the wolves, we get a very British story that is a different take on shifters than I have read so far. Traditionally when you have mates, there is sense of insta-knowing that the wolf across from you IS your mate and both wolves have the urgency to get it on - RIGHT. THE. FUCK. NOW - but with Quinn and Goddard it’s more of a questioning the feelings game. There is no pack politics in this book and actually not a lot of pack knowledge at all. Goddard knows a bit more than Quinn but really, all they know is a small handful of stories about the need to roam being the call of one’s mate but neither man holds it to gospel.

“Do you like it, roaming? I ask because my grandfather did it once. Took about five years out, he said, to be just wolf. Then he ended up in a small town and saw my grandmother.”

“Sounds like he roamed until he found his mate. That’s what we’re meant to do, isn’t it? But I always thought it was bullshit. A myth.”

We find out that Goddard is on the run, though we don’t get reason immediately. There is a brief discussion of both men being shifters and of Brent, the farmer, who shot Goddard. When Brent, shows up at Quinn’s door asking about the “dog” that was sleeping in his barn, Quinn doesn’t exactly lie saying he hasn’t seen it as Goddard is a wolf and the farmer leaves. What he leaves is a shaken Goddard who is finds himself quickly liking hanging out with Quinn and has no idea Quinn is feeling the exact same way.

Quinn decides to let Goddard rest at his place after being hunted and shot by the farmer and Goddard in appreciation, offers to help Quinn out with a few jobs around the house.

The story moves fairly quick, as it’s a short, with the relationship though we don’t get much character development of Quinn nor Goddard. We do get flashbacks of Goddard's life allowing us to know why is running and from whom and that flashback is the trigger I mentioned earlier. I find the reason a bit of a suspension of reality because it didn’t seem like enough to have him running as a wolf for so long but it also wasn’t enough to bug me.

I liked the romance and the new to me mate deal. It’s slower and less shall we say, slutty than the usual fated mate stories that I read but I liked it. The pace was enough to briefly get to know bits of each man; have their pasts meet their present and move forward into their future and the epilogue was enough to give me satisfaction and closure.

This wasn’t a mind blowing sexy AF fated mate story I am used to, but it was a decent romance read quickly at my desk during a short work day that let me get lost.

Review: Jace's Justice (Highgate Shifters, #1) by Sydney Presley

Finding yourself isn’t always easy—unless your true mate helps you along the way…

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?"
"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?"

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.

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.

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