Reviewed by Larissa

TITLE: Baby and the Wolf

SERIES:  Shifter Rescue Book 1

AUTHOR: Victoria Sue

PUBLISHER: Self-published

LENGTH: 204 pages

RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2021

BLURB: 

Just when Emmett thought things couldn’t get any worse…

Orphaned at the age of nine and sent to live with his abusive uncle, Emmett Keefer felt his life was over before it even began. Eleven years later, desperation gives him the courage to run…right in front of a moving vehicle. Not his smartest decision, but he can’t be too upset when he winds up in the arms of his gorgeous hunk of a rescuer.

As a mixed breed wolf shifter, Ryker Sullivan long ago accepted that he would never be Alpha of his own pack. Instead, he focuses on saving other shifters from being persecuted or, worse, killed for not being pure breeds. Getting involved with the human who ran in front of his truck would be a giant mistake, but he can’t just walk away from nearly running over the guy.

The attraction is instant on both sides and giving into a one-night stand seems harmless, but neither man is prepared for the truth about Emmett and how his mother died…or how it will change their lives forever.

REVIEW: 

Victoria Sue’s Baby and the Wolf kicks off her new Shifter Rescue series.  She introduces a creative if convoluted, shifter/Mpreg premise that takes a bit of work to adequately establish, and requires focus on the part of the reader to successfully follow along.  The prequel short story Baby and the Bear provides the background on how the shifter rescue organization came to be and how it operates.  Ms. Sue then expands on that in this Book 1. 

Ms. Sue does some remarkable world-building.  However, filling in all the details about the rescue organization, Ryker and Emmett’s backgrounds, and the interrelationship between the various shifter packs weighs down the narrative.  The first half of the book moved at a pretty slow pace because of this.  The action picked up in the latter half of the book.  But for a 200-page book, it definitely felt longer.

Ms. Sue creates a complex, detailed world and a lot happens in it.  She’s clearly given herself plenty of fodder for later books.  However, the story is not presented as cohesively as we’ve come to expect from her.  Another notable difference: The storyline contains less warm fluffiness and more serious content.  This world she’s created contains darkness and evil.  We see some of it on-page and hear about more of it – some pretty horrific even violent stuff – off-page. 

Notwithstanding, Ms. Sue does a good job of balancing it out with the romance between Ryker and Emmett.  That relationship starts with instalust and a connection that neither of them quite understand.  It doesn’t take long for the truth to be revealed, though.  I appreciated that she did not make this into an instalove romance, even though you might expect that in a story about mates. 

The characters in Baby and the Wolf, particularly our male leads, reflect the care Ms. Sue put into creating them.  She successfully gives them layers and dimension.  Ryker is a tough, scary dude on the outside but a complete marshmallow on the inside, particularly when it comes to Emmett.  Emmett is a bit lost (shall we say clueless?) in the early parts of the book.  However, Ryker’s nurturing, protective yet respectful treatment helps Emmett come into his own.  They are an unlikely couple, but Ms. Sue created a lovely dynamic between them that I really enjoyed.  

In keeping with many of her other stories, in Baby and the Wolf, we experience a complex, unexpected romance that presents two men trying to find themselves, learning how to trust each other, and healing past hurts.  Ms. Sue ultimately delivers a heartfelt, sweet romance between Ryker and Emmett, even amidst the darker elements of the storyline. While the story gets a bit bogged down by details, Baby and the Wolf still provides an enjoyable read that sets us up for future entries in this promising new series.

RATING:

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