The Last Wolf: A Book Review

THIS IS NOT FOR CHILDREN

Written by Marie Vale, this novel follows Silver, a runt and cripple werewolf, as she is given an opportunity to avoid being nidling (a servant to the alpha pair) by saving Ti and trying to bring him into the pack.

Okay, now that those things are out of the way: I enjoyed this novel (alright, I couldn’t put it down), but that has more to do with the combination of the writing style, building the characters, and the topic.

I mean, a Shifter and a Werewolf trying to save each other to save themselves? If you didn’t see the romance starting there, I don’t know what to tell you. Besides, I always have to give a werewolf novel a good shot. And this one did not disappoint.

The writing style and progression of the story, and honestly the characters themselves to an extent, greatly reminded me of The Others series by Anne Bishop (don’t worry, one day those reviews will all be put up and archived ever so nicely). What this means is that we have characters that are human-ish. That don’t pretend to be anything that is closer to human than that. The writing style also reminds me of Bishop, though Bishop is more eloquent than Vale. Vale does suffer from the overuse of the same descriptive word. In the same paragraph. When she isn’t doing it for emphasis.

It was refreshing to see these characters. spoiler, skip this paragraph Silver is a werewolf who is whole as a human, though with silver hair (her full name is Quicksilver), and canines that are always present, who doesn’t know what life is like beyond the pack. She sleeps as a wolf. She doesn’t have a real job. She is the runt. Her life is the pack. But you don’t fully realize that until you get into the novel.

Ti, on the other hand, is a shifter who is all human. He rejects his wolf nature, and only comes to the pack after being kicked out of his own.

The setting is supposed to be in our world (New York state, I think), and there are a lot of references to things outside the pack in the rest of the country.

At one point, the story was being told a bit backwards, and while I understand why the action had to happen, I think that it might be a remnant of  an old edit, or that something might have been missing.

Ti did start randomly calling her Wildfire, there was no transition into the name. I  like it, don’t get me wrong, but it just started happening and Silver just knew he meant her.

Fans of Anne Bishop: it isn’t her, but this might satisfy your cravings for more.

Who would like this novel? See above, anyone who years for more werewolves, romance lovers who like paranormal (this isn’t too graphic, not suitable for children, but not horrible. She did write from the perspective of characters who don’t understand human decency), those who like a little gore in their reading.

If you would like a discussion on this book (a.k.a. a spoiler filled section), please comment down below!