Harry Smith is a lone wolf, and he likes it that way. When he’s targeted to be co-alpha of the local pack, there is only one thing he can do to maintain his freedom: flee. But it’ll take a miracle to stay a step ahead of shifters in their own territory.
June Travis has been in love with Harry for years, but he doesn’t know her real identity. He sees her as the sweet owner of the local tearoom—the facade June presents to humans and werewolves to keep them from finding out she’s a witch. She may not be able to offer Harry a miracle, but she can help him escape.
Harry is drawn to this new side of June, and not just because he’s grateful for her help. With her magic temporarily hiding Harry from his pursuers, the witch and the wolf explore their mutual attraction. But there are consequences for witches who bed down with wolves…
This blurb came from the author’s website here.
I am pretty sure that I heard of Pack and Coven from the Saturday Snippets, which are very dangerous, and added it to my book release spreadsheet. I hadn’t made a note of which publisher so I was surprised when I was browsing through the February Carina Press titles on NetGalley and found it there. I couldn’t resist requesting it because I mean werewolves, witches and the fact that the two shouldn’t mix…
Ms Wallace took several aspects of werewolf and witch lore that I am familiar with and gave them some interesting twists. As I was reading I found that I kept looking for the next twist because they were sprinkled in. Her world-building gradually unfolded and it seemed like every time I thought I had the world all figured out something new popped up. I can’t really talk about the specifics of the twists because they also formed integral portions of the plot. Both the werewolves and witches demonstrated that they would do whatever it took for the survival of the masses. ‘Whatever’ certainly stretched to include what we might call drastic measures, which was both a blessing and a curse. I liked how tradition demonstrated it would cut both ways.
I did have a few issues with the characters. I thought that both Harry and June had some TSTL moments. I think some of those were driven by their own natures and a strong dependence only on what they grew up knowing. It appeared that despite the sexual attraction they really didn’t trust each other enough to effectively work together. I also thought one of the stumbling blocks to their relationship was fixed a little too easily; but that could be because when I am reading I like to see both internal and external conflict before the HEA, in this case the internal conflict seemed to be resolved before it became a conflict. I also wish the supporting cast, to include the villains, were fleshed out more. I did enjoy the various degrees of bad/evil in the villains and the additional twist, but they still seemed mainly two-dimensional.
Overall it was a decent read, one that I found I liked the world more then the characters. I give Pack and Coven a B-
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Hm. The guy on the cover initially attracted me, and your review makes this sound interesting. I haven’t read much witch PNR yet, and I like the idea of combining it with werewolves. I’m also always up for interesting world building. I think I’ll put this on my to-buy list. 🙂
@John: I hope you enjoy it :). Happy reading.