The Call by Jourdan Lane, BA Tortuga, & Emily Veinglory

TITLE: The Call
AUTHOR: Jourdan Lane, BA Tortuga, & Emily Veinglory
PUBLISHER: Torquere Press
LENGTH: Anthology (roughly 65k)
GENRE: Gay paranormal erotic romance
COST: $5.95

A trio of novellas, featuring gay romances where at least one of the partners is a werewolf.

The first story in this anthology is “Instinct,” by Jourdan Lane. In it, construction firm owner Ethan is a reluctant werewolf, scarred by the whole experience by the man who turned him, Jake. He meets Noah, another wolf, who’s interested in some work done at his pack’s home, and surprise surprise, the two fall in love. Like…right away. Seriously. Within minutes of meeting, they’re having sex on the floor of Ethan’s office. There is very little time to actually get to know Noah before they’re supposedly mated, which completely disengaged me from getting emotionally involved in the story. Worse, 24 hours after reading it, I couldn’t even remember what this story was about without going back and skimming it. That’s never a good sign. Pass.

The second story is called “Son of a Bitch,” by Emily Veinglory. Small town werewolf Nate works midnight shifts at the gas station, supplements his income with various online activities, and is hiding out from the pack he ran away from, trying to make his own place. Human Steven breaks down outside the station one night, and Nate falls in lust. Veinglory is the one author of the bunch with an original voice; she has characters that leap off the page with their eccentricities, and her turns of phrase are some of the most vivid I’ve seen in recent months. Unfortunately, she’s also the author with the most mistakes riddled throughout the story. There was at least one on every page, and often, more than that. It gets very distracting, and pulls me out of a story faster than headhopping when it’s that prevalent. Which is a shame, because hers was the story I actually wanted to like, simply because I enjoyed her main characters so much. How can you read a story that doesn’t even look like it’s been proofread? The answer is with a lot of difficulty.

The final story in the anthology is “Home Fires,” by BA Tortuga. Werewolf Houston stumbles into his mate Jackson’s home after having been held prisoner and tortured for the past two years. Together, they have to try and get over the pain of their past, as well as heal Houston’s physical and mental wellbeing. By the time I got to this story, I didn’t have high hopes. The first two had been disappointing at best, so when this story grabbed me by the shirt collar with the opening page, I was delighted. I got sucked into the hurt between these two men, enthralled by the rather vicious sex that happened as they came back together. There weren’t nearly the same number of typos or errors in this story that afflicted the others, which made it easier to enjoy it. Unfortunately, that enjoyment didn’t last. What started out with a sucker punch – easy prose, heartwrenching emotion – turned into more of the same, over and over again, as the story progressed. Sex, lots of mate talk, angst from Houston. Sex, lots of mate talk, angst from Jackson. Sex, lots of mate talk…well, you get the idea.

While a good idea in theory, the execution of this anthology of gay werewolf romance falters under its own weight. There are too many technical problems with the editing to believe it a professional presentation, and at least one of the stories has zero believability in regards to romance. I’m all for werewolf mates, gay or straight, but there’s a balance to be struck that none of these authors found. Unless you’re a fan of one of these authors, or don’t care about spelling errors, wrong word choices, or missing words in prose, don’t bother with this one.

Readability	5/10 – Riddled with typos that make even the most engaging voice difficult to read
Romance	5/10 – I was invested in only 1 of the 3 romances, and 1 not at all
Characterization	6/10 – This gets saved by Veinglory’s story; hers is the only one with full-fleshed, interesting characters
Entertainment value	5/10 – This would have been higher if I didn’t have such a headache trying to work my way through all the technical errors
World building	5/10 – Each tries to build its own unique werewolf world; each only marginally succeeds
TOTAL:	26/50