Hungry Like the Wolf by Paige Tyler
Sourcebooks Casablanca
Paranormal Romance, Romantic Suspense
Book One in the SWAT series
Published January 6, 2015
Source: Received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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Why I picked up this book:
I've read one of Paige Tyler' books before and quite enjoyed it.
Blurb:
INTRODUCING SWAT: SPECIAL WOLF ALPHA TEAM
They're tight
They're on target
They're as alpha as men can get.
The Dallas SWAT team is hiding one helluva secret . . . they're a pack of wolf shifters.
The team of elite sharpshooters is ultra-secretive—and also the darlings of Dallas. This doesn't sit well with investigative journalist Mackenzie Stone. They must be hiding something . . . and she's determined to find out what.
Keeping Mac at a distance proves impossible for SWAT team commander Gage Dixon. She's smart, sexy, and makes him feel alive for the first time in years. But she's getting dangerously close to the truth—and perilously close to his heart...
My thoughts:
This is entirely on me, but when I started reading Hungry Like the Wolf I really thought that it was the next book in Paige Tyler's X-Ops series. I read the second book in that series last year and quite liked it. Now, the blurb for Hungry makes it pretty darn obvious that this is the start of a new series, so I should have clued in. Instead, I started reading without refreshing my memory about the book's premise, and just assumed. To be fair, the last one I read was called Her Lone Wolf, and also featured law enforcement-oriented werewolves. Still, the mistake is entirely on me. It meant that I spent about three-quarters of the book wondering when the connection to the series was going to be obvious.... Yeah, it took me a really long time to realize my error. What can I say, I need more sleep!
Okay, so having gotten that confession over with - I found Hungry Like the Wolf to be an entertaining tale of werewolves living in secret while putting their physical attributes to work. In this introduction to the series, the commander of the werewolf pack/SWAT unit meets his match in a determined journalist digging around for the source of his team's extraordinary successes.
This book had great werewolves. Badass, physically imposing and attractive, the entire unit is full of alphas with all the raging testosterone that entails. The frequency of fights had me thinking they needed to invest in a 'fight room' in their training facilities to cut back on property damage. The best part of the werewolves in Hungry are that they're not here for convenience or novelty or shock and awe factor. I loved the way that all the enhanced senses and power of the werewolves were utilized - from their paranormal strength and ability to shift to their stronger senses of sight, smell and hearing, these aspects were all not only trotted out so the reader could understand what it means to be a werewolf in this universe, but they were also present all over the place, sometimes creating some embarrassing and awkward situations. For me, this also helped build the sense of family within the Pack. The lack of privacy because of the stronger-than-average senses of smell and hearing was particularly entertaining (and consistent!).
Gage and Mac make for a good couple. The basics of their story felt a little familiar, but I thought they had a great amount of heat, were reasonably flirty and their sexy times were well-balanced by all the action.
I loved the melding of romantic suspense and paranormal romance - these two come together really well in Hungry Like the Wolf. All the action scenes were fantastic and even more than that, I loved that Mac was pretty consistent from start to finish, never turning into an action hero. Her reactions felt realistic for a journalist of her caliber. I will be very curious to see what form the bad guys in future books in the series take as it became rapidly clear that the humans Gage had to face were very outclassed.
The insta-love connection was even stronger here than usual. The extreme physical attraction I could accept - the werewolves are all presented as very fit, handsome men, and they all seem to agree that Mac is a pretty hot woman, plus she's got some serious scent-appeal for the werewolves. But it was all really fast and became really intense really quickly. Three reallys in one sentence should underline how serious I am. So serious! Super serious! (I did say that I needed more sleep, guys) Now, I think the book does try to justify this with the werewolf 'urban legend' about "The One" and a single perfect soul mate and so forth. It's a concept I've seen before and because I enjoyed the book overall so much, I'm willing to give it most of a pass with this explanation - just be aware of it as you might not find it a satisfying enough reason for insta-love.
Bottom line:
Hungry Like the Wolf is a satisfying werewolf-focused romance that sets up what should be a very action-packed and entertaining series! The chemistry between the romantic leads was very strong and insta-love was explained because of werewolf reasons. I recommend this one for fans of quickly paced, action-oriented romances.
4.5 stars
For fans of paranormal romance, werewolves, alpha men, romantic suspense, insta-love
But don't just take my word for it! I grabbed a few links to other blog reviews of Hungry Like the Wolf:
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