Sandy M’s reviews of Wolf Unbound (Cascadia Wolves, Book 4) & Standoff (Cascadia Wolves, Book 5) by Lauren Dane
Contemporary Paranormal Romance eBooks published by Samhain 1 Jan 08 & 4 Mar 08

I’m the typical reader who needs to read a series of books in order. However, reviewing books doesn’t give you that luxury very often. I’ve never read Lauren Dane before and suddenly I had the last two books in her Cascadia Wolves series in hand and once I started reading, I didn’t care one iota I hadn’t read the first three books before beginning these two.

I was immediately drawn into this world of wolves to whom family means everything, and they’re in the middle of the fight of their lives to save everything and everyone they hold dear. These books are action packed and full of love and romance, along with loads of alphaness and women who know how to handle all that testosterone.

Wolf Unbound (Cascadia Wolves, Book 4)
Paranormal erotic romance eBook released by Samhain 1 Jan 08

Tegan Warden is just beginning to live again after four years of grief and lonliness. She lost her mate in Afghanistan and has overloaded herself with her job as an enforcer for her pack. After a little pushing from her sisters, she decides to take that first step and heads to a local bar. As a wolf and an enforcer, Tegan is by nature and training always in control and ready to protect her pack when danger is at hand.

She likes to give up that control and is submissive in the bedroom, something she shared with her late mate. She never dreamed she would find another dominant male to give her what she needs, but meeting Ben Stoner is a step in the right direction. Imagine her shock after a night of sex he turns out to be her mate as well. Tegan is thrilled to have that intimate connection with someone again, someone she can love and someone who can hopefully love her. Ben, however, is not that happy about the situation.

As attracted as he is to Tegan, Ben isn’t ready to give his whole life over to someone he’s just met, even if she’s a dream of a submissive behind closed doors. He’s been betrayed before and isn’t looking for a mate for life, but it seems no matter what he does, his connection to Tegan won’t let go of him. He feels her every emotion even though he’s human, and being away from her is hell. But he has to get his head on straight before he can commit to such a relationship, especially to a woman whose brothers would rather pull him apart than give him the chance to hurt her.

Plus, there’s the fact that he wants to protect her from the danger facing her pack and she definitely loses her submissiveness when she’s on the job. Just because she can tear him to pieces with little effort makes no difference, Ben wants her safe and he’ll do what he has to, by God, to make sure that happens.

I’m normally not a fan of the D/s storylines, mostly because I just don’t understand the appeal, but that’s just me. Dane, however, doesn’t go overboard with it in this book. She makes it sexy and there’s more of a caring overtone than I’ve read by other authors. Even though you know Ben is in dominant mode by voice and action, he makes sure Tegan is comfortable, asks her if she’s okay, and this is all before he realizes how deep his feelings go for her.

And I enjoyed the contrast of Tegan being his equal outside of the bedroom and Ben having to learn to deal with that. Most of all I really liked the family interaction of these books, how they accept a new mate, how they take care of their differences, how they respect and protect their alpha. We get the added plus here with Ben’s family and the repercussions of him falling in love with a werewolf.

Sandy M’s Grade: A

Read Teddypig’s review.

     Wolf Unbound Summary:

     Werewolf Enforcer Tegan Warden has been alone since the death of her mate four years ago. Until she meets Ben Stoner at a local club and she feels something she thought died inside her. Things move very quickly and she finds herself mated to a human man who’s not altogether sure he wants a forever kind of love with a woman he’s just met.

     Ben realizes in short order Tegan is not only worth forever love, but a woman who’ll stand at his side without tolerating anything other than a full partnership.

     In the bedroom it’s another story, as Ben has finally found a sexual submissive with a spark, and Tegan a man worthy of her submission. Together they work toward building a permanent relationship even as the specter of danger from the Pellini Group grows in the world of wolves.

     All around them, the rising violence threatens the Packs and the only thing they know for certain is one another.

     Read an excerpt.

Standoff (Cascadia Wolves, Book 5)
Paranormal erotic romance eBook released by Samhain 4 Mar 08

Standoff basically picks up where Wolf Unbound left off. The packs are still after Warren Pellini, trying to end his reign of terror. Cade, the Cascadia alpha, has declared war on Pellini and his outlaw wolves, and when meeting with someone who has volunteered vital information about their enemy, Cade gets the best and worst shock of his life. Their informant is Cade’s mate. He knows it the second she walks into the room. She is also Pellini’s sister, Grace. Of course, this matters not to Cade. The pull of his mate is stronger than anything and this is something he’s waited so long for and something he’s wanted more and more recently. She’s strong and independent, his equal is nearly every way. She will make the perfect alpha alongside him. Now more than ever he has to rid the world of this rogue wolf and his desire to be a mega-alpha, because the most important thing, even more important than pack, is on the line and she must be kept safe.

Grace Pelilli is only trying to do the right thing when she returns to work for her brother. She knows he’s out of control and must be stopped. The only way to do that is pretend she’s on his side while working in his lab to outsmart him and get what information she can to the packs. In doing so she never thought her life would change so drasticially. But realizing she is Cade’s mate gives her a sense of peace along with the want and the need to be part of him. She never really had a family; her parents supported her brother so she wanted nothing to do with them. Becoming part of Cascadia’s family is at first difficult because not all of them trust her, but when she is finally accepted as alpha, she embraces the warmth, the love, the camraderie of family. Even better than that feeling is the emotion, the deep, binding emotion, she now shares with Cade.

I like the wolf characteristics that Dane keeps consistent with all of her characters even when they are in human form, including the submissive posture one takes when they’ve done wrong; the way they all have the need to touch, feel a touch, rubbing a cheek on a shoulder, a group hug when needed, and helping a wounded family member bring their wolf out to allow them to heal (this was done especially well in Wolf Unbound). Of course, all of the love scenes are sexy and hot. All the characters are paired perfectly, so anything from sex to teasing to raising their young is done exactly right.

This is one series I will never get tired of and I’m so looking forward to the next book, Fated, due out in August 2008.

Oh, Sybil!

Sandy M’s Grade: A

Read Teddypig’s review.

     Standoff Summary:

     Cade Warden has put his Pack first for most of his life and now Warren Pellini and his thugs threaten everything he holds dear. Into that life of intense focus and increasing loneliness walks the woman he’s been waiting for.

     Grace Pellini isn’t just Cade’s mate, she’s the sister of his greatest enemy and she’s been putting herself in grave danger to gather information to aid the Nationally Allied Packs. Cade is everything she could have hoped for in a man even if he is overprotective and pushy at times.

     Against the backdrop of their increasing passion and deepening bond, they race against time to find a key to stop Pellini’s biological weapon. And then the stakes rise again when Pellini calls an ancient Challenge. It’s up to Grace to stand by and let her mate risk everything for his people. And his life is in her hands.

     Read an excerpt.

Teddypig’s review of Cascadia Wolves: Standoff by Lauren Dane
Paranormal romance ebook released by Samhain on 4 Mar 08

[Ed Note: WARNING: HERE BES Spoilers, A.K.A. the End of the Book.... Proceed With Caution.... Also, we moved this post to show up once the book was released.]

First off, let’s get one thing straight here. If you have read the most excellent Cascadia Wolves eBook series, you are gonna buy this book. No question! You will get this book and read it because Enforcer and Tri Mates was Werewolf Romance crack.But, then I am left trying to explain my allergic reaction to reading this last entry in the series. That is where I ran into the proverbial brick wall. I love Lauren Dane. I love her families and I love her complex worlds and I like her not making her characters too omnipotent and rich and spoiled, because when she writes normal everyday characters with warm families, and difficult but reasonable limitations and life experiences, she so rocks.

So why did I not like this book?

After sitting on this review for a while I can only summarize it felt to me like Lauren undermined her own strengths here for the sake of writing a straight forward romantic story with simple actions and a pat ending, that’s why! This final book called for acknowledgment of all she had created in the course of the series and it just seemed to fail in that regard.

Grace Pellini, the most evil villain Warren Pellini’s sister, turns out to be Cade Warden’s fated mate. This is a damn good setup for the big finale here – in theory. I still like the drama of my own idea better – Lex Warden dies and Cade is left to take care of and mate with Nina – but I am a dark dark horrid Pig that thinks younger brothers make great targets.

Anyway, Lauren’s idea here does not bother me so much. In fact, putting Cade on his own away from Cascadia to handle the Warren Pellini problem and then introducing his mate is an excellent choice with a lot of potential that gets him off balance and makes things more intense.

BUT!

What actually happens… Cade meets Grace. Cade jumps Grace. Cade drags Grace back to Cascadia. HUH!?!?!?! With Nina preggers and stuck in bed? WTF!?

Cade tells Lex and Nina the good news on the phone and they turn into these strange alien harpies I did not know. They started acting totally out of character making absolutely no sense with their reactions. Cade is their Alpha right? They act like nasty spoiled children. Very un-family like and WTF?!

So here we go down a path I was totally uncomfortable with…

Why put pregnant Nina in danger by dragging Grace back to his Cascadia house, thus making everyone there great big targets?

Why was Lex, a life long werewolf and Cade’s brother, so down on Cade for mating with Grace? When he knows from his own experience MALE WEREWOLVES HAVE NO CHOICE IN THE MATTER!?

Why was the threat of the Pellini organization kept so remote to our heroes? Half the time I was reading this book, I felt they were all sitting around watching CNN and talking about the latest Pellini attack, like we all do about the Iraq War. In other words, they had no personal involvement until the end, when Warren Pellini’s minions finally show up to threaten Grace at the airport.

Why was Warren Pellini, who Lauren expertly made into a very evil and unstoppable corruptive force, so easy to take out in a one on one duel the end? I mean Lauren pointed out several times that Warren was not a “real” alpha. She also shows how he runs the group even here in this book:

Warren’s spies were everywhere, she trusted absolutely no one, not even her own parents.

To me this type of enemy is complex and very dangerous because you could take out Warren but his organization makes the next in line just as evil and just as dangerous. In other words, not only would every rogue werewolf be in the pack hierarchy, but also “only there for their own benefit,” making it not only an unstable organization, but also unstoppable and highly adaptable evil-wise.

So at the end Warren Pellini poisons the Mega Alpha which forces Cade to go one on one with Warren. Why did it take so long for this to happen if this was all that had to be done? The aftermath being Cade becomes this Supreme-ruling-Alpha and everyone plays nice THE END. ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Don’t get me wrong. I hope Lauren takes all her strengths she has shown in the Cascadia series, lists them out, perfects each one, and then mixes them with the stuff I loved in the Chase series. I would so be drooling over reading about blue collar werewolves in small towns trying to just make a living and find true love. I know I am sorta suggesting perfecting a formula out of all this. But you know what? A good formula can be so worth the effort especially if it makes for a juicy series of books.

Grade: D

Blurb:

Cade Warden has put his Pack first for most of his life and now Warren Pellini and his thugs threaten everything he holds dear. Into that life of intense focus and increasing loneliness walks the woman he’s been waiting for.

Grace Pellini isn’t just Cade’s mate, she’s the sister of his greatest enemy and she’s been putting herself in grave danger to gather information to aid the Nationally Allied Packs. Cade is everything she could have hoped for in a man even if he is overprotective and pushy at times.

Against the backdrop of their increasing passion and deepening bond, they race against time to find a key to stop Pellini’s biological weapon. And then the stakes rise again when Pellini calls an ancient Challenge. It’s up to Grace to stand by and let her mate risk everything for his people. And his life is in her hands.

Read an excerpt.

Other books in this series.

Read more from Teddypig at The Naughty Bits.