Reviewed by Sarina
This is a Series Review of Cascade Pack Series (Books 1 – 4)
AUTHOR: Lei Carol
PUBLISHER: JK Publishing
SERIES REVIEW:
This was just a horrible series from start to finish; there were so many editing problems that I wondered if any of the books had ever seen a beta. The writing was often juvenile and the dialogue crude and apparently the author’s idea of a shifter includes threatening to kill a fellow pack member for offering comfort or a foot rub to his mate, who’s in desperate need of it. There wasn’t even a satisfactory ending to any of the books as the epilogues all revolved around promoting the next book instead of giving a clear ending to the one I was reading. Unfortunately this means that there will be a fifth book at some point for Ethan and Gordan but I won’t torture myself by reading it. The only way I made it through these books was through the sheer determination to save anyone else interested in them from the same pain I felt; I would’ve stopped and gotten rid of them before I was halfway through the first book otherwise. These certainly weren’t worth the time I spent reading them.
SERIES RATING: 
TITLE: Doctor Troubles x2
LENGTH: 72 pages
BLURB:
Warning: For Mature Adult Audiences. Contains language and actions some may deem offensive. Sexually explicit content. Ménage – MMM.
In book one of the Cascade Pack: Thomas Wolfenson made a decision ten years ago that he thought was for the best of everyone involved, instead it has haunted his every step. Even his wolf refuses to come forth after the bad decision was made. However, a call sends Tommy rushing home, but what he finds when he gets there not only shocks him, it has the potential to change his life forever.
Kyle has grown up with the knowledge his fated mate never wanted him. But when he shows up making a claim on him, Kyle struggles with the sudden change in his fated mate. Afraid that if he gives his heart it will be broken once again.
Is Thomas strong enough to right the wrongs that were made long ago? And when the caller who sent him home is revealed, does it cost Tommy more than he ever thought he could lose? Or does fate allow a second chance, offering him more than he ever thought or wished for in his life?
REVIEW:
Once upon a time, Thomas made the decision to stay at school instead of coming home for Thanksgiving so that he wouldn’t end up claiming his mate before he had a chance to go to college and make something of himself. Now, ten years later, his wolf hates him, he can’t shift, and he’s been getting phone calls for years from someone he doesn’t know, the latest of which has him rushing home to help his mate. Once there, however, things become a little more complicated than he originally expected.
Oh God, this book was a mess. Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? From the blurb I expected the situation to have played out differently than it did; I was under the impression that Thomas basically rejected Kyle in some way and that’s what left him feeling like he wasn’t wanted. Uh, no, that’s not actually what happened. Something happened to land Kyle in the hospital and when Thomas didn’t show up Kyle rejected Thomas. Even worse you never get Thomas’ perspective on things; you never find out why he wasn’t there and its never talked about once in the entire book aside from the mention that that’s how things went down. Okay, pet peeve blurb rant complete, let’s move on to the multitude of other problems.
Events in the book happen entirely too fast; it was like the author wanted things to happen in the book but didn’t want to spend the time actually writing the transitions to get there. Reading it was kind of like making random leaps through the storyline and anything she didn’t feel like writing was basically skipped over in order to get to the next part. Then there are the random acts of sex and don’t get me started on the quality of writing either; at times it was so sophomoric that I had to stop and question the age of the person writing it. I’m going to give an example of things that can be considered a spoiler so if you’d like to skip to the next paragraph, please feel free. There’s a scene at the waterfall when Thomas is trying to get to Kyle and the big ‘action angst’ scene is basically taking place. Kyle just saved someone’s life but is now threatening that same someone while declaring that since his mate doesn’t want him, he’s going to go throw himself off a cliff. Kyle is prevented from following through on his plans of suicide by another character who then proceeds to get him off on the ground in front of pretty much the entire pack (with Thomas’ permission so its okay) before this new character declares that since he can’t have Thomas, he’ll throw himself over the side instead. And he does. And then suddenly, BEARS. Yup, bear shifters just all of a sudden there. Like BAM. No working them in, they’re just right there because the author wanted them in the story and aside from being told they want to talk to the alpha, no explanation is given as to when they got there, or why or anything else.
Things really don’t get any better from there. Nothing is ever discussed between the characters; Thomas basically walks in, says MINE and the sex ensues, never mind the issues between him and Kyle that prevented a previous mating but that apparently don’t matter now regardless of the fact that the entire premise of the story revolves around this problem. This is also a ménage story, but it was such an unequal relationship that it almost made a mockery of it. I’ve read some really good ménage and poly stories and the relationship in this one was just so bad I almost felt ashamed for it. I don’t even have the heart to get into the lack of character development or the grammar and spelling mistakes. Unless you have the desire to punish yourself with this, just skip it.
RATING: 
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TITLE: Saving Blaine
LENGTH: 86 pages
BLURB:
Warning: For Mature Adult Audiences. Contains language and actions some may deem offensive. Sexually explicit content. MM (M-preg series)
In book two of the Cascade Pack: Blaine moved to Sleepy Hills, Oregon after months of running, constantly having to look over his shoulder, afraid and jumping at his own shadow. He slowly makes new friends, even letting his guard down enough to try to date. Blaine quickly learns that not everything is what it seems.
Elliot Wolfenson has been waiting months for his mate to settle enough to finally meet him in person instead of just emailing. He finds himself trying to control his wolf so he doesn’t send his mate running before he gains his trust. But when his mate witnesses something that shouldn’t have happened, Elliot is on the verge of losing the one man meant to be his future.
When Blaine’s past comes looking for him, will Elliot be able to save Blaine and their relationship in time? Or will he lose everything he has always wanted?
REVIEW:
Leaving an abusive relationship was hard but five moves and nine months later, Blaine thinks he’s found a place he can settle down. Taking classes at a local college, he turns to Elliot for tutoring help and a ton of e-mails later the two agree to meet in person. Elliot, like his brothers, has been searching for his mate and he thinks he’s found him in Blaine, if only he can convince the skittish man of that. Trouble in the form of Blaine’s ex rears its head, however, and things may have just gone from bad to worse.
Alright, round two of this series. This was a little better than the first book in the series but not by much. The characters were a bit more developed this time around, which was nice to see, but there was still a whole host of other problems. Instead of the giant scene skips in the first book, this one had conversation skips. The author would say something along the lines of ‘here, let me explain it’ and then in the next scene, Blaine apparently got the explanation but the reader has no idea what it was…and you don’t get it at any point after that, either. Being left to guess at what’s going on instead of having the author put forth the effort to tell me is frustrating. There’s also the fact that if you haven’t read book one, you’ll have no idea what’s going on in the main plot area of the book as it gets skipped over completely; just a giant gaping hole where a scene should be.
The communication issues were still a serious problem between the characters in this one but what I hated was how Blaine acted; he ran. He hears or sees something he doesn’t understand and instead of confronting Elliot about it, he runs and hides and ignores all attempts Elliot makes to talk to him. The man basically bent over backwards for the guy and he couldn’t give him the time of day, he’d rather cry about it and ignore everything else. Aaand then there was the part of the book that made me see a bit of red. Blaine decides he wants to top Elliot but he doesn’t want to RUIN THE SURPRISE so he slicks himself up and just STICKS IT IN. Never mind that Elliot tries telling him that he’s never bottomed before and let’s forget the preparation necessary. But hey, he’s already got it in so that makes it okay; just add a little more lube and we’re golden. There are still grammar and other editing problems in this volume but the story is still the biggest problem of this book.
RATING:
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TITLE: Jake’s Dilemma
LENGTH: 107 pages
BLURB:
Warning: For Mature Adult Audiences. Contain language and actions some may deem offensive. Sexually explicit content. MM
In book three of the Cascade Pack: Jake Wolfenson has watched his brothers as they have found their mates. He wonders when and if he will find his. Jake has always known from a young age that he would be the Alpha of his pack. His worry is that after finding his mate, will his family still respect enough to continue to hold the job as Alpha.
Landon Jax set out on a journey not knowing the end result. He could only hope it would lead him to answers for questions he has held his whole life.
The pack sends out fillers for information. When they get a response, they leave to retrieve the answers but what they find could cost them the very thing they were trying to protect—their existence.
REVIEW:
Jake is getting tired of seeing his brothers and their mates while he’s still waiting for his own; being the alpha isn’t all its cracked up to be sometimes. Working to help his pack and the mates that have found themselves pregnant, he begins searching for information they sorely need, which leads him to Landon. Abandoned as a child, Landon is looking for information about his family and along the way is sent to help the Alpha of a local pack.
Round three. *ding*
I find myself struggling to find something nice to say but since I can’t I’m just going to get right to it. While the characters were okay, I found as the book went on that the author couldn’t seem to keep Jake’s personality the same from start to finish. In the previous books you see him being the Alpha, but in this one he starts the Alpha and ends up regressing to a giggling pre-pubescent girl with the attention span of a goldfish. Not kidding. I get the impression that the author can’t reconcile someone being a strong Alpha but also someone who likes to bottom, even though its her own character. The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive but you’d never know it from reading this book. Meeting Landon makes Jake want to fall to his knees and beg for cock, never mind that he’s never done so before, and he spends pretty much the entire book dreaming about it. The only time you see him go back to acting like an alpha is when his brother is in trouble and he goes to rescue him.
We won’t even get into the chocolate references in regards to Landon; his skin, his eyes, wondering about his taste. I kind of want to avoid even eating the stuff from all the repetitiveness I was forced to read.
Landon seemed like an okay guy if you can ignore the fact that, like the bears from the first book, he just appeared and tried verbally dominating Jake in the kitchen. At least he wants to go on a date before jumping his bones, so I’ll give him a plus for that. By the end of the book we’ve run into more problems in the information, like we did in the first two; Landon mysteriously knows things about his parents even though he’s never met them before and they haven’t said anything about it. And then there’s the fact that the author apparently thinks leaving a crying baby alone in the woods while the parent runs away counts as protecting it. I don’t even have the words to describe what I think about that one.
RATING:
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TITLE: Claiming His Bears
LENGTH: 82 pages
BLURB:
Warning: For Mature Adult Audiences. Contains language and actions some may deem offensive. Sexually explicit content. Ménage – MMM.
In book four of the Cascade Pack: Shawn has always known he wanted something different then his brothers and sisters. He has spent his entire life trying to hide just how different he needs were, afraid they wouldn’t understand. So desperate to protect his secret, Shawn even runs away from his family and his mates.
Zerek and Zander were amazed the day they walked into the café to meet one of their employees for the first time only to find out he was their mate. Now they are forced to wait to claim him as well as figure out just what secret he is desperately trying to keep.
Can the bears give their mate what he needs? Or will he run for the hills, leaving three lives shattered?
REVIEW:
Shawn is the youngest brother and has a bit of a secret; he has a thing for kink. Shameful, really. Not like there aren’t spankings being handed out left, right and center amongst his other brothers and their mates but apparently, Shawn just doesn’t think they’ll understand. Taking his needs into his own hands, he regularly subs for various Doms for months at a time or in the current case, a year. Having signed a contract, Shawn finds the one thing he wanted, just not right now: his mates. Zerek and Zander are bear shifters and knew, since they were twins, that they would one day share a mate. Finding out that he’s an employee they’ve spoken with online for the last eight years was a surprise but not an unwelcome one. Unfortunately, Shawn tells them he can’t mate with them but won’t tell them why. Willing to go along with what their mate wants, the secrets nevertheless lead to problems that almost cost Shawn his life.
Okay, this was by far the best book of the series but looking back on how bad the rest were, that isn’t saying very much. I did like the fact that there wasn’t a ton of sex in this book and the public displays of raunchiness by other members of the pack were cut to a minimum, as well. There were just a bunch of other problems, however, that cut down on my enjoyment. There were inconsistencies between the epilogue of the third book and the storyline in this one. There’s the blurb which states Shawn ran because of his ‘secret’ (which two of his brothers and one of his mates know about so really, what secret?) when he actually ran because he thought his mates were rejecting him. (Do we see a theme?) Never mind that they were actually standing by the rules that Shawn had laid down for the mating and he should’ve been thanking them for abiding by his wishes instead. Which is another peeve about this book. Shawn told them he wouldn’t mate with them for a year and then spent the book trying to get them to mate with him and then whining and feeling unwanted when they won’t. I mean, really?
There are also the smaller inconsistencies like what Shawn smells like (first it was vanilla ice cream and later it changed to blackberries and cream), and how a mating between three people is supposed to work/take place. This was spelled out in the first book but wasn’t followed in this one. Communication between the characters was again non-existent and I laughed my head off when one of the bears said communication was the key to life. I couldn’t help it. Even with this being the best of the bunch, there were still too many problems for me to want to read this again.
RATING:
BUY LINK:
I love Kindle Alexander so I know I’ll be reading her book. Thanks for the names of other authors I’ll be trying.