Book Review: Shifter Wars (Werewolf Dens #1) by Kelly St. Clare

Book Title: Shifter Wars (Werewolf Dens #1)

Author: Kelly St. Claret

Published Date: October 6th 2020

Number of Pages: 382

Book Rating: 2 stars

Book Description:

When Mum died, I inherited a lot more than a pack of lies.

I landed a $410,000 debt.

Discovered her previous surname.

And her real place of birth.

Desperate to uncover the truth, I drive to a tiny dot on the map called Deception Valley.

Coincidental name? Nope.

There, I find her secret family—because she had one of those too.

How many lies are we at? Honestly, I’ve lost count, but local gossip captures my attention. Apparently, Mum’s other family play laser tag every Wednesday. Not even joking. Laser tag.

What the hell is this place?

In hindsight, the massive guy with honey irises was my first major clue. Unusual eyes for a human, right?

Perfect eyes for a werewolf.

But sexy supernaturals, thongs, and mounting financial strain aside, Mum’s past is buried somewhere in this valley, and I need to dig up the truth or find a way to live with her lies.

What do you do when neither option will leave you unscathed?

Review:

This started off as a book I thought I would love. Something you should know about me, and you might already know about me if you have read previous reviews is that I LOVE a good werewolf book. Give me some supernatural worlds, close family and friends and some werewolf mates and I am there!

Like I said, the book started off as something which I thought would hit all those points. It wasn't extremely well written, but definitely not the worse I read from an indie author, and better than some traditionally published authors too.

What got this book down to 2 stars was the romance and the ending. Without spoiling anything here is why.

The werewolf love interest (this is not really a spoiler, it basically says so in the book description) is toooo alpha. By that I mean he is more animal and lust incarnate than he is man or in love.

At first I thought if I gave it time it would get better. Many books I have enjoyed has a tense relationship at the start, or an unhealthy supernatural type obsession/relationship at the star which develops into something beautiful and sweet. This wasn't it. If anything the guy got more stalkerish and obsessed, to the point I feared for the MC's life. Yet the MC was kind of going with it? She wasn't happy with it but she had a "boys will be boys" mentality and let it slide. That is something else I am NOT on board with, "boys will be boys" is a very harmful stereotype which lets men/boys get away with things which aren't right. That trope should not make acting a certain way OK. Anyways the romance is a very very large part of this book and I really disliked it so it was hard to enjoy the rest of the book. I think with better characters the book might have been really cool. But not only did I not like the love interest, I also could not connect with any of her so called friends or any of the side characters.

Then the ending came. Grrr. I kept my hope for a better book until that very moment. When the ending came to light I gave up. I felt cheated that I spent or dare I say wasted, my entire day on a book which I should have known was not for me.

I will give credit where it's deserved. The plot twist at the end I did not see coming and that's rare for me. So kudos to the author for that.

Now for the part of almost all my reviews where I mention that you might still like this. I didn't and won't keep reading, but this book has good reviews on Goodreads. People seem to really enjoy the romance? I personally do not understand why, but everyone reads books differently so maybe this kind of romance would be your thing? If the ending foreshadowed anything it's that the next book will be much much more of the same when it comes to romance. So if you like stalker like romance, with lust driven actions that over power common sense, then maybe this book is a good book for you.

Last thing, I kind of wish we got to know the love interest without him acting insane. We are told why he acting so insane but still, I think he could have been a cool character if we got to see the real him.

That's it for this review! I hope you all have a great day and thanks for reading!