The Strength of the Wolf by Jorrie Spencer

TITLE: The Strength of the Wolf
AUTHOR: Jorrie Spencer
PUBLISHER: Samhain Publishing
LENGTH: Novel (roughly 60k)
GENRE: Paranormal romance
COST: $5.50

Being a werewolf isn’t Veronica’s biggest problem. Being a werewolf with amnesia is. She is ready to find someone human to latch onto in hopes of surviving another winter when a wolf trap snares her. The kind David Hardaway rescues her, and Veronica decides that this is the man she wishes to be human with, at least for a little while. She seeks him out the following summer, but David doesn’t know what to do with this strange woman who has golden eyes that look all too familiar. He’s got his own problems, like the fact that his nephew’s hacking has gotten him into serious trouble. That doesn’t matter, though. Because David’s not about to turn his back on her, even when good sense tells him he should.

There is something about Jorrie Spencer’s writing that completely sucks me in. I start reading her work, and all too quickly, I find myself unwilling to stop, even when real life demands that I do. It helps that Samhain books always seem to be some of the best edited out there, because I get the chance to actually get lost in the story instead of being jolted to reality by an overload of spelling errors. And I did get lost in this one. Much to the annoyance of my family.

One of the contributing factors was how much I liked David. This is a man much like some of the single men I know in real life – hard-working, isolationist, dependable with good intentions. I believed him from the second he decided to free Veronica from the trap, and I kept on believing him because he acted rationally and intelligently throughout the story. When characterization is this consistent, it’s easy to invest in the story. I understood his frustrations with his family and Veronica so well that by the end, I was a little ticked at Veronica for not coming to him sooner. Silly me.

There’s a definite tragic undertone in all his interactions with Veronica, understandably so. She lives on the edge, and as a reader, I felt like I was right there with her. Sometimes, that pulled from enjoying the story more, but I plowed through that to get to the next David POV scene. Those were welcome reprieves.

The story is the sequel to The Strength of the Pack, but this can be read completely as a standalone. The one drawback to that, however, is that any explanation of the werewolf mythology is lacking. Because of Veronica’s amnesia, there is never any exploration into her animal world, beyond her firsthand experiences in the book. It doesn’t detract from enjoying the story, but a reader going in needing that should be prepared to be disappointed.

I really enjoyed this story, enough that I’m looking forward to seeing what this author does next. The action and characters are solid, and David will linger for me for awhile. I strongly recommend this to anybody looking for a winning blend of romance and drama, with just a dash of heat.

Readability	9/10 – The style sucks me in and professional presentation keeps me there.
Hero	9/10 – Solid and dependable, as realistic as I’ve found and still romance-worthy
Heroine	8/10 – It got a little tiresome dealing with extreme paranoia all the time, but consistent and worthy of my attention
Entertainment value	8/10 – A solid read
World building	7/10 – The nature of Veronica’s amnesia restricts this throughout most of the book, and adding more detail on the wolf mythology gets ignored in the end in favor of the romance
TOTAL:	41/50