Tami Lund, $0.99, ISBN 978-0463656600
Fantasy Romance, 2020
Lyall sounds like a brand of lice remover, but it’s actually the first entry in Tami Lund’s Dark Moon Falls Wolf Shifters series as well as the name of the hero.
Dark Moon Falls is a place that isn’t subtle about the fact that it’s full of woo-woo out the wazoo. There is an inn called Wolf Inn, for heaven’s sake. The local witch coven is called, what else, the Dark Moon Coven, while the local werewolves form the Dark Moon Pack.
Well, Lyall Wilson is of the pack and Natalia Vasquez’s late grandmother was a witch that acted as the pack’s favorite go-to healer when there were injuries that needed tending. He and Natalia had a thing until she graduated and then left town without him.
Well, she’s back now, given that her grandmother died and all, and Lyall’s mate-smell-whatever senses go into overdrive again. Will they be together forever this time around?
Naturally, they will end up together. In fact, our heroine decides to stay for good tad too easily for my liking, making her seem like a flake all those years ago for gamboling out of town like that.
A bigger issue that some people may have with this one is that it is actually a small town reunion story at its core. Take away the werewolf and witch, and the core story will still be the same; just change the werewolves to MC people or ex-Navy SEALs or whatever, it’d still work just fine.
Sure, there are some dramatic action later on, and the heroine needs to be saved, but that’s standard operation procedure for pretty much all flavors of the romance genre. People expecting something more urban fantasy-ish may still walk away thinking that the woo-woo elements feel tacked on and aren’t truly organic to the story.
Me, I think the narrative is fine. There is a nice balance between humor and feels, instead of everyone fighting to see who can cram the most one-liners in this story. The whole thing is easy to read in a single sitting, and there is nothing here that will give me gas or make me break out in hives.
Also, there are some fun secondary characters that don’t feel too much like sequel baits. Rather, they all have their roles to play, or at the very least, their presence makes things interesting. So the author does that right too.
I just wish that there is more dramatic conflict here, because the heroine basically walks back into town, gets into some woo-woo drama, has sex with the hero, and then decides that she’s now going to be with the pack, woo-hoo. The balance of external and internal conflicts is off, swinging too heavily towards the external conflict side, and as a result, the romance feels more superficial than I’d have liked it to be.
Still, this one is an alright read. I won’t say that it has me all giddy with excitement, but it’s a nice way to pass a lazy afternoon.
