Monday, February 23, 2015

Patricia Briggs - Cry Wolf

Anna never knew werewolves existed, until the night she survived a violent attack... and became one herself. After three years at the bottom of the pack, she'd learned to keep her head down and never, ever trust dominant males. Then Charles Cornick, the enforcer—and son—of the leader of the North American werewolves, came into her life.
Charles insists that not only is Anna his mate, but she is also a rare and valued Omega wolf. And it is Anna's inner strength and calming presence that will prove invaluable as she and Charles go on the hunt in search of a rogue werewolf—a creature bound in magic so dark that it could threaten all of the pack.


Comment: Since I realized I loved the Mercy Thompson series by ms Briggs I thought why not reading her other series based on the werewolf society. This different series also have the particularity of being told in the third person narrator, while Mercy Thompson is first person. I kind of enjoyed the switch...

This is Anna and Charles story. Since they met, a really short amount of time ago, they have been feeling the mate instinct but both aren't sure how to proceed. At the same time a threat comes to Montana and Charles is tasked with solving it. He takes Anna along not only for her Omega help but mainly to keep bonding with her.
Although the enemy isn't looking for them, they will step up to help someone who needs and who they come to respect.

This book was good. But it does feel better if one reads the short story Alpha and Omega that comes first. Although this book is understood well without it, the short story adds a better take on why Anna and Charles are they way they do and why their communication happens so slowly. Those people who kept saying I should read it before this book were, indeed, correct.

This book is a good example of a well structured different world. The author has an idea and to make it work has to give it structure, a base to work from and rules let's call them that, to make things work in a expected but also new way. It has to start from somewhere though and to just give a story without the reader understanding whys and hows wouldn't feel strong, so the author inserted a lot of new and detailed things for us to have a feel of how things work.
This is one of my favorite things about shape shifter worlds (and other paranormal sub genres at that), the way we get to know how things happen while still reading a fiction story about certain characters.

Ms Briggs has a clever idea of how to present things. Both in this series and Mercy Thompson's, she puts her characters doing things and slowly we get to understand why it has to be so. This allows the reader to know things mostly from character's actions and thoughts and not as much as from boring descriptions. I think this is very well done and the author keeps this tool at a well timed level that doesn't feel like the character is teaching us a lesson or telling a story. Not all authors do this that well and thankfully Patrica Briggs is very talented.

This story isn't only about wold setting up. There's a lot of character's interaction, which also helps to explain things, there's the plot issue, which also teaches things while we see them solve a problem and helping a friend.
The plot is smart and emotional. I can't help but hope everyone will be redeemed in a way and find happiness when the series end.

Of course one of the best things about the book is to see how Anna and Charles grow to care for each other, how their relationship evolves after those shaky days after they first met.
Much is dependent on Anna's thoughts and feelings, because Charles seems more confident on his personal views and feelings and sense of his wolf. All these things aren't as solid on Anna and she needs to deal with them to be happy. I think her attempts were believable and the way she finally accepted her new existence sweet and well deserved. I think we didn't see as much, but I assume that with them protagonists in following books too, that will be developed as well.

All in all, a good book, wonderful plot and character development and I really hope all those secondary characters keep having an important place in the next books too!
Next month I'll be reading the following installment.
Grade: 8/10

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