I am kicking myself for taking so long to read The Last Wolf by Maria Vale. It was an enjoyable Paranormal Romance within a new world for me. The world-building was very good. The characters were likable. The action was great. I am putting the rest of the series on my To-Be-Read list.

I listened to the audiobook for this book and it did not help me understand the whole shifter/wolf world. This is a new to me shifter/wolf world and I really needed to understand the whole thing. But the audio was not helpful. There is a lot of legend and telling about the world but my gripe about this book is that I had a hard time differentiating when they shift into wolf and when they shift into human. I'm not sure if it would have been better if I read it instead of listening to the audio.

I read a lot of positive reviews for this book, so I wanted to read this for myself. I'm not sure if I am reading the same book or if the audiobook contributed to my confusion.

The conflict was also meh for me. When Silver found out the true purpose of Ty's purpose, her reaction was... nothing? Especially since her fears were confirmed.

Overall, I was just sooooo confused.

I know I am reviewing the audiobook instead of the book because I could not get into the book at all. I thought that the audiobook would be better, but maybe I should have read it instead.

I liked this story, but it did not wow me. If you are looking for romance, then this is not a book for you. The main characters became a couple, but the focus was more on pack politics and survival.

The Last Wolf, the first book in The Legend of All Wolves, tells the story of Silver Nilsdottir and Tiberius Leveraux. Silver is a member of the Great North Park, an ancient breed and the first of their kind to relocate to North America.

Because of a birth defect, Silver is at the lower echelon of the pack, destined to be a slave. At the moment she was to face her destiny, a wounded shifter seeking refuge entered their midst. To save him from death at the hands of her pack members, she offered to become his protector, which released her from becoming a slave. This would prove a risk as they both faced the possibility of being exiled if the Pack did not consider the stranger worthy to become a part of them. In addition, he is keeping a secret, which has the potential to destroy the pack.

The prologue provided a history of how the pack ended up living in North America. We also see how the enmity between shifters and werewolves originated. The events which occurred were interesting, which had me looking forward to the rest of the story. However, it did not go as expected. I found the pacing to be slow, and it took me some time to get into the story. In addition, I found parts of the story difficult to follow. I had to reread several paragraphs in my aim to grasp the Pack’s rules and behaviours among other things. The story yielded a few laughs and some awkward moments. Narrated from the POV of the heroine, the story treats readers to her perspective, but I feel it would have more of an impact if Tiberius’s POV was introduced.

Silver and Tiberius had a lot in common. They were both damaged physically and emotionally. Tiberius refused to embrace his wolf as result. Silver is determined, resilient, loyal, smart and somewhat impulsive, while Tiberius was strong and protective. I enjoyed getting to know them as individuals, but I found it difficult to connect with them as a couple.

I found the world building unique. Pack members and shifters were sworn enemies and would kill each other when the opportunity arises. The pack members were wolves who changed to humans. Some were not comfortable being humans but did so as a means of survival. Shifters were humans who changed to wolves and preferred to embrace their human sides. The laws and customs of the pack were strange and gruesome. For example, whatever they killed, had to be eaten, which led to a few stomach-turning moments.

Conclusion/Recommendation
Overall, I found The Last Wolf to be an interesting start to the series.

With thanks to netgalley and sourcebook

The last wolf is a paranormal romance book, that I rather enjoyed. hope there is another book in this series.

For three days out of thirty, when the moon is full and her law is iron, the Great North Pack must be wild. Silver Nilsdottir is a lone runt with a crippled leg, facing a life of endless submission in the Pack. Then Tiberius Leveraux stumbles wounded into their territory with a plea for protection. If Silver is to make a real place for herself, she must fight for Tiberius—her only chance at ever having a mate. And in the end, she is forced to shield all of them—the Pack, the land, and the man she loves—from ancient enemies.
This was a pretty decent book. It was a bit different from other books I’ve read, making it a nice break. I really liked both main characters. I recommend.
**I voluntarily read and reviewed this book

I actually ended up buying the book, because digital reading and migraine don't go together very well. I don't feel my money was wasted, but there's definitely more of a paranormal romance going on, and not urban fantasy. These wolves don't do urban very well, preferring to be wolfy most of the time. The world building and writing are done well, just not where I want to spend time. I would recommend to readers who prefer romance.

A the start of trilogy a series.

This isn’t a typical shifter book, the author has gone for a different spin. These are wolves that change into humans, most don’t like to be humans for long. They aren’t comfortable in the human skin, nor the surroundings of being trapped in a human body, they prefer the hierarchy that the wolf pack brings them. To a wolf, it’s all about the pack, and feelings don’t usually come into it. So romance isn’t really high on their list of things that is important. They mate, not necessarily for love, it’s more of an alliance between packs or for the good of the pack.

Silver isn’t a typical wolf shifter, she has a disability, but it doesn’t stop her, in fact I think it’s made her more determined. She knows she won’t get a chance at getting a mate, the best she can hope for is being a “servant” to the alpha pair.
She is strong willed and will speak her mind when warranted.
She doesn’t really get noticed, but all that changes when she meets Tiberius.....

Tiberius beaten and wounded badly, stumbles into the Great North pack’s territory.
He spends most of his time in human form (living with an abusive parent, he suppresses that side of himself). But the pack of wolves won’t be as understanding as the single she wolf who found him. They don’t accept the wolves who live a human life.

As I said before, the romance isn’t a big thing in this book, it does focus on how they feel, and reading how Silver thinks and feels about Tiberius, it really gives us a different opinion.

It does make it hard to keep reading, but if you forget about the other shifter books you’ve read, and read it for what the book is trying to tell you, then it’s a really good read.
We start in the past, and how the Pack was created.
We learn about pack through Silver’s eyes, and the love she has for her pack. But we also learn that Silver wants a life and a mate of her own.


🦋

I received a copy of this book for an honest review.

The Last Wolf was...interesting. I definitely had my likes and dislikes with this story, but overall it wasn’t bad.

The story starts with how the wolves ended up in North America. I have to say this part of the story was super confusing and I wasn’t 100% sure as to why this part of the story was included. Basically one of the alphas goes to the other alphas to join her as she moved her wolf pack to North America. It ends on a bit of a confusing cliffhanger and then starts with chapter one.

The story is about a girl named Silver who is more wolf than human. She was born crippled and a runt which put her place at the bottom of the pack chain. Then a Shifter comes bleeding and dying to the pack asking to be protected by someone and Silver takes up a role as Shielder to help her move up in the pack rank. Silver tries to teach the Shifter Tiberius what it means to be a wolf.

I enjoyed a lot of aspects of this story. I enjoyed Silver as a character and thought she was very much a wolf-girl. I enjoyed how she took care of her pack and of Ti. I liked her strength and her abilities to hold her own a lot of the time. I also enjoyed later how when her and Ti’s relationship changed, she didn’t change as a character. She was still strong and independent.

I like Ti’s character too. I wish I could have read some of this story in his perspective, but alas that was not meant to be. I thought he helped Silver a lot in terms of helping her become stronger and know her role in the pack better.

My dislikes for this story had a lot more to do with the writing style than the characters or overall plot of the story. The language used in this story was confusing a lot of the times. Sometimes words were in a different language, which would have been fine except some of the words were never defined. So, while I was reading I’m trying to use context clues and it’s just like a big question mark because I had no idea what it was saying.

Also, the number of names. There were so many and since a good majority of the characters were developed some, but not completely, it made the story overwhelming. I honestly struggled to remember who was who and what was what.

My final dislike was that the story dragged in some parts I felt didn’t need that much attention. When reading the 16th chapter and the story goes off on a long tangent about the woods again it felt unnecessary.

Despite the dislikes of this story, I did feel like it was enjoyable and had a good amount of enjoyableness that I didn’t end up hating the book. The plot is original, the characters are enjoyable, with lots of character growth, lots of action, and not a whole lot of minutia. Downsides were that the pacing was inconsistent and there was a lot of confusion about words and names. If you have the chance to pick this story up, I think it’s worth a read.

This was great, and was a fresh twist on a werewolf novel. The story centers around Sil, a werewolf, and Ti, a shifter, the natural enemies of werewolves. It's a forced together for survival trope, but there was a lot of emotion and depth to their relationship. The history and politics of the pack were especially fascinating. I'd recommend this book for fans of Patricia Briggs and Kelly Armstrong.

While i don't consider this the best shifter book out there, Marie Vale does an excellent job in building her series. New characters with problems meet and slowly fall in love. Leaving some room for continuing the series, The Last Wolf is still an excellent read for anyone who loves shifter tails :) (get ..wolf...tails.. haha)

4.5 Stars

Silver Nilsdottir is the runt of the pack, she’s smaller than all the other wolves and has a bad leg, this puts her right at the bottom of the pecking order. It seems inevitable that she will end up as the indentured servant of the alpha pair. Until Tiberius Leveraux stumbles on to their land half dead and asking for sanctuary.

I love it when taking a chance pays off. I decided to read this mainly because I liked the cover and I wanted a new PNR to get my teeth into. I didn’t really hold out much hope that I would love it. So, when I started reading and realised this wasn’t quite what I expected and so much more I was thrilled. I loved it.

When I started reading I thought it would be a light fluffy PNR where the hero lets the heroine find her self worth even though she is perceived as weaker by those around her blah blah blah. However, Vale gave us a much grittier and complicated story than that. If you are a fan of Anne Bishop’s The Others series, The Last Wolf has a similar feel. The wolves in this really are wolves, they just happen to be able to shift to a human shape and you really get the sense of otherness when you are reading it. At first, this made it a little hard to connect with Silver and some of the characters surrounding her, they just think so differently. But Silver’s personality, her strange innocence and determination and love for her Pack come through really strongly and she quickly became a heroine I adored.

Then there’s Tiberius, he’s the “normal” one, the character that it is easier to identify with as he has been brought up in a human world. Watching him acclimatising to the ways of the Pack, with the help and guidance of Silver, especially as we view his “human” ways from Silver’s POV had me glued to the page. The romance between them grew with the book and again it is viewed through the lens of the Pack, which was at times hilarious, which just made the whole things more interesting. However, the differing cultures did not take away from the chemistry between them.

This was a fantastic read and what I loved most about it was the world that Vale created. This is down as one of the best books I have read so far this year and I fully intend to recommend it to everyone and grab the next book in the series as soon as I can.

Review: I love shifter books. I think it would be so cool to be able to shift into another form at will and then be able to take my human form again. I was really excited when I got that chance to read and review this book because it deals with shifters and being a part of a pack. All the things that are appealing to me about reading shifter books.

I found the book hard to follow at first. There were a few times I had to go back and re-read the paragraph because I couldn’t follow what was going on, but after a while, I got used to Ms Vale’s writing style and I was able to follow the book.

I liked Ti and Silver’s characters. They both appealed to me because they both were damaged internally as well as physically. They were deemed “weak” and pretty much undesirable because of things that were out of their control. I think that Silver could have been an alpha if she was in another pack just on her determination alone. She didn’t let anything stand in her way when she was fighting for something or someone that she believed in and to me that is makings of a great alpha.

I think Ti could be alpha material as well because of his size and when he gets mad, whoa other wolves had better watch out.

They are both aware of their disabilities but it doesn’t affect them in a negative way, in fact it forces them to pave new ground to try and be in higher standing within the pack and amongst their peers. I give them both a lot of credit for not letting anything stand in the way of what they want in life. The only way to get anything is to go out and get it. Things aren’t going to just come to you because that’s what you want.

I think that readers need to take a chance on this book. Take a look at it at least and see if it’s something that is in the readers’ interest. It was a good read, really.

2 Wine Glass #Review of The Last Wolf by Maria Vale

Maria Vale introduces readers to a distinct paranormal world of werewolves, shifters, and humans in her release of The Last Wolf. Where shifters and humans are the enemy, and the werewolves are more animal than not...

Silver Nilsdottir is a member of the Great North Pack, one of the first packs that came to the New World, and one of the oldest. In a hierarchy of only the fit survive though, Silver is ranked at the bottom because of a crippling birth defect. Despite her obvious loyalty and commitment to her pack. When she is finally faced with the decision of becoming a modern-day slave to the beta couple of the pack, or align herself with an injured stranger, she chooses the stranger. Regardless of the consequences and possible expulsion from the pack. Tiberius Leveraux is a conundrum to Silver, a wolf shifter who refuses to hear the call of the wild. But Tiberius has many secrets, and one not only puts Silver at risk, but her entire pack...

At the beginning of The Last Wolf, readers are transported back in time where the alpha of the Great North Pack is scrambling to survive the human's encroachment on their territory, and the shifters that have banded together with them in order to kill the werewolves. Traveling to the unknown lands of America with the last of their pack is their only hope but hundreds of years later, the Great North Pack finds themselves facing the same obstacles....The backstory of the pack was stagnant and the transition between the past and present was rough. It took me time to realize that I was now reading about two different characters. Honestly, I should have D.N.F.'d this book right away. Nonetheless, I kept hoping that if I read a little further, the point of the story would take shape, but unfortunately that never came to be.

While the author creates a unique paranormal world, the explanations for this realm were oft times bewildering. The narrative was overly descriptive, and flat with sporadic pacing. The world built around the lackluster characters was monochromatic. While Silver was a loyal, sweet character I couldn't connect with her in any way. The story itself got downright grotesque at times, and lacked any passion whatsoever. The entire pack mentality was bizarre to be honest. Bottom line, the author's writing style just did not work for me in the least and I don't see myself reading any more of her works in the future. I will say though, that if you enjoy more of a beast-like story, The Last Wolf might be for you. However, for me, it lacked the range of human emotions that all good romances are established with.

I was forced to DNF this story, I found myself lost in the worldbuilding and I don't think this type of shifter romance is my forte. Just felt bored with it and by 40% I had to let go of it. There were some aspects that I found interesting but not enough for me to keep going especially when I have been trying for almost two months to get into this book and haven't been able to!! Time to let go, maybe someday later I will pick it up again.

Maria Vale adds to the vast werewolf / shifter lore with her The Legend Of All Wolves series. Each author creates their own world with its unique rules and laws. There is some serious world building in The Last Wolf, I believe it’s necessary to understand this unique world. At times this story read as more of an Urban Fantasy than a Paranormal Romance, and while the two genre did blend somewhat I found myself never truly in either genre… and, for me, that was an uncomfortable feeling.

The Last Wolf is less about the romance building between Silver and Ti, and far more about the Pack and the differences between their lives and the outsider’s or the rest of the world’s. At times this story felt too crowded with people, events and yes, even graphic descriptions. I’m not fainthearted, I simply didn’t feel some of it was necessary to get the point across. Yet, I’m only the reader and that was my impression of parts of this story. It’s a good story, it will have an audience that will enjoy Silver and Ti. …and I’m going to leave it at that.

This is a 3.5 star rating for me which I’ll round up for additional postings.

*I received an e-ARC of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley. That does not change what I think of this story.It is my choice to leave a review giving my personal opinion about this book.*

I’ve read many werewolf stories but this one was intriguing. As a young, female wolf at the bottom of her pack’s pecking order, Silver has no chance for a better life. But when a stranger stumbles into their midst, she decides to risk everything on a chance to truly belong.
The story is dark and unique with solid writing and storytelling. I was fascinated by the world building and the way the wolves ordered their pack and their lives. It’s very unusual to have a shifter story where the where the characters seem to really understand their animal counterpart. The romantic element enhances the story without overwhelming it and the conclusion was suspenseful. An enjoyable read. I will purchase this book for my collection and look forward to reading the sequel. 4 stars.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

As a first book, her world-building is phenomenal. There are just some sore spots in the plot for me. I just don't understand why a pack that is so strong and long living would not learn to adapt to the world around them. I accept traditions, but adaptation is survival. The pack are billionaires, but they wear ragged clothing and do not have heat in all their building? Again, plot points that don't quite add up.

The lead characters - Silver seems very intelligent, yet, she takes whatever is thrown her way and never questions anything. This to me is not a strength but a weakness. Tiberius - hero or villain, or both? While they do have a connection, they are coming from such diverse backgrounds they do not really make sense to me.

There is a lot of potential in Ms. Vale's writing, there just needs to be some fine-tuning.

Received as an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a book that as soon as I read the synopsis I really wanted to read it. I have always loved reading books about wolves and shifters and all sorts of paranormal things.

Now I know what most of you are thinking, this is just another girl meets guy, decides to help a guy out, falls in love with guy and lives happily after a few minor setbacks. This does tend to go along those lines but Silver the lead character in The Last Wolf doesn’t always give into this trend. She stands up for herself against Tiberius even while she is putting her neck out for him and while as you may have guessed they end up becoming mates that is not the entire story.

There is a nice vein of family or pack running through this tale. Even though Silver is at the bottom of the pack she is still looked after by them and while Tiberius and Silver have to prove themselves to be fully accepted they are given every opportunity to do this. You also get to meet many of the pack from the tiny pups to the head of the pack.

As you may have guessed there is a romance but it is almost a slow burner and they get to know each other quite well before it becomes a big thing. Later in the story ( without spoiling anything) Tiberius helps to teach Silver about life outside the pack before outside forces potentially ruin the life they are trying to build.

I really enjoyed the writing style of the author. Everything flowed so well and there wasn’t anything that distracted me from the story or anything that i felt detracted from it. I will definitely be looking for more work by this author in the future.

I have The Last Wolf 3.5/4 stars for the story and the characters. I found that even the lesser characters were well written and added to the story.

Well, color me surprised because I really enjoyed The Last Wolf. It started off a little rocky but by the ending, I was in love with Silver, Ti and the whole Great North Pack.

The start starts with a prologue that frankly, confused me. I didn’t really get the feel why this piece of information was needed. I did eventually understand the purpose of the prologue, but it was well into the book before things clicked. Skip forward to Chapter one and we meet Silver. She’s at the bottom of her pack’s social order and immediately it’s hard to not like her. Okay more like not feel sorry for her. She’s about to make a coupling with a less than favorable wolf so that she would end up as a servant with nothing, but the coupling is denied. She is resigned to her fate until an injured half shifter/half wolf pleading his case. If Silver returns to her pack, then she will be and have nothing. However, taking a chance on this stranger could get her what she wants, a full place in the Pack. And it is a risk she is willing to take.

As the story continues and we begin to learn more about Silver and my pity soon turns to sympathy then awe. Her she is a runt, doing all she can to survive, but underneath it all is this strength that I can’t help but admire. She is certainly more wolf than human and her struggles as she enters the human world probably was not meant to be funny, but I did find contained touches of humor. Ti on the other hand, very much in touch with his human side. Probably too much and the reasons why broke my heart. His interactions with Pack I enjoyed but it was what occurred between him and Silver drew me in and made the book hard to put down.

Anybody expecting this book to be a traditional PNR filled with romance is going to be disappointed. The Last Wolf is so much more than that. There’s a whole world that centers around the Pack, its delicate nuances, its strength and family structure. What happens with Silver and Ti, feel less like romance and more of bonding out of necessity that morphs into a true couple. Debut author Maria Vale has created quite an interesting story with The Last Wolf that I found to be a great read. I’m looking forward to her next book.

reviewed by Jac