Pray

Happy Tuesday everyone!!! I hope you all have adjusted to the time change, I know I am still having a hard time with it, but thankfully the kids seem to be doing just fine. Baseball season is over for our family but basketball is about to be in full swing, so it never really stops. I really enjoy this time of year, growing up in California we didn't have the fall color changes like we do here in Virginia and I really love seeing all of the different colors in the trees.

We have a fairly new author that we are spotlighting for you this week, her name is Christine Bell, and I will be reviewing her first book in the Wolves of Pray series.


Pray, Christine Bell, Cobblestone Press, 2010

Strong-willed photojournalist Amalie Baptista is appalled by the legalization of wolf hunting in Montana. She hopes that photographing these savagely beautiful animals in their element will call attention to their plight. Her mission ends almost before it begins when she is attacked by one of the very creatures she has vowed to save. Suddenly, Amalie finds herself in the midst of a world she thought only existed in horror movies.
Alpha male Liam Albrecht is breaking all the rules for the captivating Amalie, risking his place within the pack as well as his own life to protect her. He's already lost his beloved friend and pack member to a sadistic hunter who still remains at large. Now, as discord among the area packs reaches a fever pitch, he must find a way to save the woman of his dreams from the monsters among them.

This story begins with Amalie being attacked by a wolf shifter and her subsequent rescue by Liam, the alpha of a wolf shifter pack. Her attacker belongs to a different wolf pack and in the eyes of the shifter community Liam's interference is the bigger crime. The shifters have been betrayed in the past by humans and "turned" shifters and with the recent murder of a member of Liam's pack by a human tempers are high. Not only does Liam have to stand before the alphas of the other packs to argue for Amalie's life but he could be punished as well for stopping the other shifter from killing her. While Amalie is recovering from the attack she and Liam get to know one another and a bond forms. Will Liam be able to convince the other packs that not all humans are out to kill them or will his and Amalie's lives be over?

I enjoyed this story and thought the author did a good job of making the bond that forms between Amalie and Liam believable. I do wish that the book had more of the background history about the shifters and why their laws are the way they are, I had a hard time with the whole killing humans isn't murder to them but if one of their own was killed it was. I also like the mystery that the story ended with that made you want to immediately read the next book to see what would happen, which I did. I do hope that the author and/or her beta readers will be a little more vigilant about editing.

I give this book 3 chocolate dipped strawberries!