Reviewed by Jen
TITLE: Hart’s Betrayal
SERIES: Lycan Detective Duet
AUTHOR: S. Bolanos
PUBLISHER: Chaotic Neutral Press, LLC
LENGTH: 437 pages
RELEASE DATE: March 13, 2026
BLURB:
Some secrets are worth dying for.
Lycan Detective Joshua Hart isn’t just good at his job—he’s the best. Despite his skills and the Fae magic that prevents him from lying, he has a terrible secret: he’s the last of the Harkers, an ancient family dedicated to the eradication of werewolves. When he’s summoned to Adler Springs to investigate a brutal murder, his mission couldn’t be simpler—until he makes the catastrophic mistake of sleeping with his Pack Liaison. Now they’re bonded. If Elijah dies, so does Josh. And Josh was sent here to destroy Elijah’s entire pack.
For Elijah Bennet, being assigned as liaison to a Lycan Detective is no honor—it’s a punishment from an Alpha who despises him. He expects to be nothing more than furry wallpaper while the detective picks his pack apart. What he doesn’t expect is the prickly, gorgeous man underneath the reputation. Or the ancient bond that now ties their fates together. Elijah has spent his whole life avoiding leadership and entanglement. Now he’s shackled to the one man who could annihilate everything he loves—and he’s falling for him anyway.
REVIEW:
This is an interesting start to this story. Josh is a Lycan Detective assigned to Elijah’s pack of Lycans to solve a murder, but there is a lot more to his presence there that takes this into a whole other direction. He seems to be playing both sides and we don’t learn right away about his actual role, but he is the one who is causing the chaos by infecting Lycans with a Lycan disease that basically causes them to go feral. It seems his mission is to ultimately take out the pack, but there is the added aspect of him wanting to be involved with Lycans, most especially Elijah, whom he hooked up with just prior to his chaos mission.
Josh uses magic potions, etc. to hide his scent and appearance from Elijah and others, but that doesn’t prevent a bond from forming. Before they realize it, the bond is in place forever linking Josh and Elijah. If Josh dies, Elijah dies, so this makes things even more precarious. Josh seems to be sort of stuck between having to fulfill his mother’s evil wishes of taking out Lycans, which is a family trait that he has trained for his whole life. Turns out she has been manipulating him, but this isn’t clear before he does quite a bit of damage.
Just when Josh and Elijah seems to be on the same page and are thinking about how they can actually make a life together, things really heat up. The truth comes out which sends them into a tailspin of betrayal with seemingly catastrophic results. Josh pulls free and now can’t think of anything happening to Elijah, so he tries to help him and the pack.
There is another element that seems important here in that Elijah appears to be an alpha which everyone seems to believe but which Elijah refuses to acknowledge. He has no desire to challenge for pack alpha but we get the feeling that he will be left with little choice at some point.
The suspense and action really ramp up in the last quarter of this story which is when we learn more details of Josh’s past and of what is happening with the Lycans. It had me turning pages quickly to see what would happen and then we are left hanging with the last words. I am now hooked and riveted and can’t wait to read the next installment to see how this story plays out.
RATING: 
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