As heir to the throne, Ruben must choose an appropriate mate to preserve his royal bloodline-despite his fear that his true nature will destroy them both. Yet the female he craves above all others is a dangerous combination of fairy and shifter, a mesmerizing creature who inspires both passion and suspicion. Then violence strikes the castle, and the two are forced to track a killer into perilous magical territory. But with treachery everywhere, will Willow and Ruben's growing bond be enough to shift the fate of their two kingdoms?
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I love being surprised and this one had a few twists and turns that while playing into the expected romance formula still made it quite enjoyable. With its Cinderella like beginnings I worried that a lot of the story would be taken up by Ruben being a jerk about Willow 'deceiving' him regarding her origins but instead we got action, murder, and a hunt for a killer through various Sidhe lands - nice one!
Even though the readers knew who the killer was all along I still think the way Whiddon wrote things I never got really bored - impatient to have the person revealed - but that's it. Plus to introduce serial killer tendencies and use those to demonstrate just how far gone the killer was? Excellent.
But to reassure my romance readers out there, this is still at its heart a romance. Ruben is drawn to Willow and can't quite figure out why (I know - duh). Forced to work together their sparks have time to grow into real feelings, especially since Willow is able to connect to his wolf, at times almost better than Ruben can. By the time I reached their HEA I was happy to see them start their life together - and intrigued enough to want to pick up some of the previous books in this series! I need to read about Ruben's sister!
Overall Feeling - A
Series - ... 11) The Wolf Whisperer 12) The Wolf Princess 13) The Wolf Prince
*Title requested from NetGalley*
