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A Red Moon Rises this Halloween, so heed the howls and enter a world of wonder, danger and desire. Tales of Howloween presents a thrilling collection of nine supernatural tales that will keep you guessing until the final stroke of midnight.
My Thoughts
Tales of Howloween is a collection of nine supernatural stories featuring wolves. I had the fortune of reading three of these stories, each of which I will talk about below.
Forest Fated by Jamie Dalton (High Fantasy)
Wolf shifter Cassius captures renegade mage Ariella with the intention of turning her over to the evil wizard who controls the land. Their meeting sparks an instant connection that surprises them; they decide to team up to destroy the evil for their own personal reasons setting off a prophecy that surprises them both.
I really enjoyed this story and thought the reasons behind the main character's actions made a lot of sense. Cassius was doing what he thought best to protect his pack and his family while Ariella was trying to save her mentor, and the two of them really had no reason to trust each other in the beginning. The author did a good job for such a short story to make their relationship plausible, even if at first it was simply to take down the evil wizard. I enjoyed Cassius as a character, but did think Ariella was a bit annoying at times; it was if the author was trying too hard to make her seem independent and strong when she seemed to come across as snippy and childish. However, I did think their relationship worked. This is one of those books that I could see being developed into a full-length story as I would be interested in learning more about both of these characters and seeing a lot more development in their relationship as well as a lot more world development. And I would love to learn more about Cassius and his wolf pack. The writing was strong and she managed to incorporate a whole lot into a such a small, little story.
Bloodstone by D.C. Gomez (Urban Fantasy)
The Reapers crew try to stop a cult from waking the God Set.
While I enjoyed this story, it wasn't my favourite of the three simply because I am not a fan of using money and wealth as a convenient way to solve every problem, which is exactly what happened in this story. While the story was interesting enough, I didn't feel like I really fully understood the characters and why they had certain skill sets or why they had bracelets on to protect them from their own magic. And the wolves didn't feature as strongly in this story, something in which I was a bit disappointed. However, I would like to read something a bit longer by this author to see how she develops longer stories as there was a lot of potential here.
Celestial Rescue by Charlene Pender (Alien Romance)
Meg gets separated from the shuttle as it crashed on an uncharted planet while attempting to fix a repair on their stole spaceship. Hurt, unsure fo where she is, she is rescued by an alien wolf-shifter with whom she shares an instant attraction.
This was by far my favourite story as there was this level of tension throughout that kept me glued to the page. I enjoyed the chemistry between the two main characters and loved how they tried to communicate even though they couldn't speak to each other. And while I didn't understand exactly how Meg had been kidnapped or how she got away, it didn't matter as what we got was quite intriguing. This short story needs to be developed into a book as there was so much going on and so much of interest that I really would love to get to know these characters and discover the politics that sent a wolf-shifter on an alien planet out on his own to warn a rival pack of danger. And the wolf descriptions!!! My, oh my!!
Good review.
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