ONCE UPON A WOLF, gay romance novella with solid omega vibes

ONCE UPON A WOLF (Wayward Wolves #1)
RHYS FORD
Dreamspinner Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Once Upon A Time, There Was A Wolf….

Gibson Keller’s days are fairly routine: wake up early, get some work done, drink lots of coffee, and take care of Ellis, his older brother stuck in wolf form after coming home from the war. It’s a simple life made up of long runs on two legs—or four—and quiet evenings…. Until Ellis chases a handsome man off a cliff and into the frozen waters beside their cabin, changing Gibson’s life forever.

For Zach Thomas, buying an old B&B is a new start. Leaving behind his city life, he longs to find peace and quiet, and hiking the trails behind his property seems safe enough—right up to the moment an enormous black wolf chases him into a lake, nearly drowning him. Discovering werewolves are real astounds him, but not as much as the man who rescues him from the icy water then walks into Zach’s heart as if he owns it.

Loving a werewolf—loving Gibson with all his secrets—has its challenges but Zach believes their love is worth fighting for, especially since his heart knows the big bad wolf is really a prince in disguise.

I RECEIVED THIS BOOK FROM THE GOODREADS M/M GIFT EXCHANGE. THANKS!

My Review: A series-starting novella whose series never started. It kinda shows; there are details that don't always track. Like Zach seemingly both does and doesn't know what Gibson and Ellis are before they become neighbors.

Ellis as a werewolf with PTSD is really not a lovely, cheery fella, and younger brother Gibson works around it as best he can where Zach is concerned. Zach's newfound heart-family, Ruth and Martha, don't figure that much in the story, but seem to be primed for more...that never came. Speaking of coming, Zach and Gibson did Rhys Ford's insta-lust thing that works for you or really does not. Consummation is not as rapid to arrive. A slower burn is more appropriate here because Zach really has trouble believing he's in this relationship with a shapeshifter.

The usual werewolf strong possessiveness is mitigated in Ellis. He behaves more as a human would, feeling awkward about his powerful drive to own Zach. I found that made sense to me...he's brother to a man so psychically wounded as be stuck in his wolf form, it's going to make things about his own nature clearer for him.

The tender and loving care both men exhibit for Ellis, the careful way they coax healing into him, makes the book feel more like it's about Ellis than the lovers. Their first physical union is the only one in the story. It's a novella, maybe 45,000 words, so it's not like there's a lot of room to add more.

Low steam, relationship focus, strong emphasis on forming family...if that's for you, and it was for me, this is a good example of it. Available on Kindle Unlimited.

THE JAGUAR MASK, a beautiful tale of working with people not like you to accomplish things that need doing

THE JAGUAR MASK
MICHAEL J. DeLUCA
Stelliform Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$21.99 paperback, available now

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Felipe K’icab doesn’t know who he is. He only knows he was born different than his human family, and he can’t relax unless he’s blasting reggaeton in his cab weaving through the streets of Guatemala City. The jaguar mask and his other human faces keep him safe–until El Bufo, a corrupt ex-cop, commandeers his cab and drags Felipe into a murder conspiracy investigation, trying to expose the foreign-backed regime’s ecocidal and genocidal past.

Cristina Ramos knows who her mother’s killers are. After witnessing the murder in a vision, she struggles to keep her grieving family from falling apart. When El Bufo’s relentless vendetta throws Felipe into her life amid increasing civil unrest, Felipe and Cristina must overcome generations of institutionalized silence, uncover the secrets of their powers, and forge a path to justice, or else be swept away by another wave of violence.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA THE PUBLISHER. THANK YOU.

My Review: A werejaguar and a corrupt ex-cop drive a revenge/vengeance plot that cuts the nonsense out of criminally culpable ecocide. Different agendas make them extremely effective in cooperation. Cristina adds a psychic flair to a deeply unlikely scoobygroup, all with very different...even conflicting...agendas for their actions.

But those actions are all in immediate harmony, so they go well. Proof that people with different agendas are well-advised to focus on an immediate goal that suits each. Let the longer-term issues go; make common cause with anyone who can help you get urgent business done; keep your ears open for what those you're working with do not know they are telling you because all information is useful.

Ki'cab, our werejaguar, is the most immediately appealing and relatable character for me. He feels unsafe in his home, so goes to the big city and flourishes in his own patchwork piecemeal way. His human mask is the one that fits least well, perfectly understandably given how awful Humanity is, how poorly the weres fare at their hands. I'm with ya all the way, soul sibling. He has many masks, though, and wears them to accomplish different tasks for which he needs to be a slightly different guy. It's fascinating! I love that Ki'cab lives with a woman who loves and commits to life with Aníbal, her transmasc boyfriend. I love that he cares more for the needs and dignity of his friends than for abstractions like Morality and Legality. Felipe Ki'cab, you're the human in this book that I want to grow up to be.

El Bufo and Cristina are decent enough characters, each is presented as a human being with motivations and reasons for their lives and actions; it's no fault of writing or characterization that I'm less interested in either of them. Cristina's got the grief of knowing the truth, seeing it clearly in front of her eyes, and not being able to alter its happening (Cassandra deserves a better rep in our culture); El Bufo ("The Toad") is presented such that empathizing with him is hard.

Hard for monoglot readers will be contextually-clued-in words from Spanish; I hear this, but it's so incomprehensible to me y'all find it troublesome to read "foreign" words when this amazing tool the internet will tell you what anything you don't know means in English. I'm more empathetic with those unfamiliar with Guatemala, as my own acquaintance is nodding at best, relying on a friend who lived there ages ago. I find learning about places dimly familiar or utterly unfamiliar fun; if you don't treat them like Mordor or Arrakis, places impossible and unreal, and just get on with reading.

I'll say that the beginning say 15% will challenge you. It is not entirely in medias res, but gets really close to it. If that's just intolerable to you as a reader, this might not be the read for you. I can't offer an all-5 rating because of that, but can say I think you'd do well to give the sample a read. Maybe the prose will woo you in....