Title: Once Upon a Wolf
Series: Wayward Wolves 01
Author: Rhys Ford
Genre: Paranormal
Length: Novella (96pgs)
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (16th February 2018)
ISBN: 978-1-64080-514-9
Heat Level: Low
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥ 3 1/2 Hearts
Blurb: Two lonely men. One perfect family.
Aiden Lake adopted his institutionalized sister’s two daughters, and he’s a good dad. He works nights on websites and gets in his adult time twice a week at the Roasty Bean, where he meets with other single gay parents.
Devon Smithson wants to be a good dad now that his 16-year-old sister asked him to babysit her newborn…three months ago. But he’s overwhelmed with the colicky baby. An invitation to the daddy-and-kid gatherings at the café is a godsend. The pot is sweetened when his friendship with Aiden develops into more – maybe even something that can last.
But the mother who kicked Dev out for being gay wants to get her claws into the baby, and she doesn’t care if she tears Dev, Aiden, and everything they’re building apart in the process.
Product Link: Dreamspinner Press | Amazon US | Amazon UK
Reviewer: Aerin
Review: I’ve always hoped Rhys Ford would write a shifter book, because no one can do savage and murderous better than her. I finally got my wish….kind of. Once Upon A Wolf wasn’t exactly what I expected, and while Rhys pulled me into the book with her amazing gift of storytelling, I feel like something was missing.
Once Upon A Wolf feels to me more like the introduction to Ellis and the prequel to his book, rather than the love story of Zach and Gibson. Their budding relationship took second place to Ellis’s recovery, and that’s perfectly fine, except this book was supposed to be more about Gibson and Zach.
Gibson is a wolf shifter who has spent the last 2 years of his life caring for his older brother Ellis, whose body refuses to shift back to human after the horrors of war. Ellis’s torment and slow recovery is beautifully done! I love Ellis! The problem is that I don’t feel like I got to know as much about Gibson, since the focus wasn’t exactly on him.
Zach survived a horrible crash that should’ve left him dead, and after a painful and long recovery, this city boy turned his life around and bought an old inn in the middle of nowhere. Getting lost while walking through the woods, he finds himself chased by Ellis’s wolf, and then rescued from a certain death by Gibson. Finding out that wolf shifters exist blows his mind, but Zach immediately feels at home in the company of Gibson and Ellis.
The romance between Zach and Gibson is veeeery slow burn, and that’s mostly because the focus is simply not on their relationship. We are told that they spend a lot of time together, but we don’t really witness any of those times. I expected more, but this doesn’t make this book bad by any means.
One thing is for sure…. I might not have gotten what I wanted in terms of Zach and Gibson, but I definitely can’t wait to read Ellis’s book! There’s so much mystery surrounding him still! I’m looking forward to it!