CLAIMED
Series: Laird of the Wolven #1
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Author: JR Ward
Release Date: July 27, 2021
A heart-pounding new series set in the Black Dagger Brotherhood world, with a scientist fighting to save the timber wolves—and getting caught in a deadly trap herself…
Lydia Susi is passionate about protecting wolves in their natural habitat. When a hotel chain develops a tract of land next to the preserve, Lydia is one of the most vocal opponents of the project—and becomes a target.
One night, a shadowy figure threatens Lydia’s life in the forest, and a new hire at the Wolf Study Project comes from out of nowhere to save her. Daniel Joseph is both mysterious, and someone she intrinsically wants to trust. But is he hiding something?
As the stakes get higher, and one of Lydia’s colleagues is murdered, she must decide how far she will go to protect the wolves. Then a shocking revelation about Daniel challenges Lydia’s reality in ways she could never have predicted.
Some fates demand courage, others require even more, with no guarantees. Is she destined to have true love… or will a soul-shattering loss ruin her forever?
He’d gotten it wrong. She wasn’t his. It was the other way around. She owned him.
I have been sitting on my rating of this book for almost a week now, struggling to figure out how I felt. Ultimately, while there were definitely things about this book that didn’t really work for me, it did hook me enough to want to read the next one, but just not enough to rate the book any higher than I did.
Now for the story. If you haven’t read the BDB series, you may find yourself a little lost here. This is set in the same world as BDB with an overarching story line for Xhex from Lover Mine as well as events spanning from those that happened later in the BDB series. While you get some explanations, if you haven’t read BDB, you may find yourself a bit confused.
Additionally, this is not a standalone. This caught me completely off guard. I was expecting a standalone in an interconnected series, not a cliffhanger. I wish this was made clear to the reader and the cliffhanger here doesn’t catch you unaware.
But those things aside, let’s talk about the story. I love Ward’s brand of story telling. She’s written some of my favorite PNR books. When I saw she’s taking a step from the vampire world to dive into werewolves, I was so here for it. Now usually book one in a new world, does read slower. You have a whole new world to introduce. But while I expected slower paced, I didn’t quite expect to feel as disconnected from it as I did. I found myself bored, skimming the pages. The mystery is what kept me going, but everything else felt lackluster. I found myself struggling to connect to the romance. I never fully felt the chemistry here. It all just felt a bit…bla to me.
Now don’t get me wrong. While the story didn’t blow me away, it still kept me engaged enough to keep turning the pages. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it either. It was just very bland compared to what I’ve come to expect from Ward. I will say that even though I didn’t expect the cliff, the last 20% off the story is what won me over slightly. That’s when the action really began to take place and the story began to pick up at least a little pace. It hooked me enough to want to read the next book and desperate to see how everything ends. Though it’s still not clear if the next book is the conclusion or if it will be a series focused on one couple.
