Wehr Wolff Castle was simply not for me. It turns out I only enjoy historical fiction when it involves dashing dukes falling for the men they shouldn’t or badass heroines standing up against men who want to own them- literally! World wars? Nope not for me.

I tried, I really did. I made it halfway - DNF @50- before throwing in the towel.

The werewolf part had me intrigued and I liked our main characters but unfortunately, not enough to continue when the story BORED me to tears. For a horror it really fell flat!

Wehr Wolff Castle by B. Bentley Summers caught my attention on Netgalley. It was set in WWII and involved werewolves somehow (Wehr Wolff gave it away). I had really enjoyed another WWII werewolf story, The Wolf's Hour, so I decided to try this one. I am glad I did. It was an enjoyable read.

The main character. Hagen, is an American who joins the Royal Air forces. As a trained paratrooper who is fluent in German and an expert tracker, he has a lot to offer. His tracking abilities border on the supernatural. By smelling a handkerchief owned by a missing man, Hagen can see images. The images can be present not past events. His group is dispatched to rescue a British man and find out what the SS is up to at a secluded castle. Rumors say they are developing a weapon that will win the war.

The story is full of action and populated by a large cast of characters. I had a little trouble following exactly what was happening where once all hell broke loose in the castle. This is probably my fault and not the author's. The descriptions of the characters and locations were very good.

To anyone who is hesitant to pick up the book because there is a M/M relationship, I encourage you to give it a try. The love story between Hagen and Liam, a member of his group, evolves naturally in the story. It makes sense within the context of the story. The delay in finishing the book was due to illness and not my interest in the book.

Hager is a US citizen who joins the RAF as a specialized tracker. Although he had been promised one position, he is assigned to a secret mission in Germany. Hagen grew up in Germany, so he knew the language. When the bomber goes off course, they actually end up in the part of Germany where Hagen grew up before they moved to the US. The bomber encounters stiff resistance, with most of the team being killed, although the plane crew and the scientist who is along for the ride end up still alive.In the short amount of time that Hagen is with the crew, he makes a friend of Liam, who is from Ireland.
Jared leads the team to a place where tragedy occurred when he was young, and strange things begin to happen. When the true nature of the mission is revealed, the team decides to continue to try to carry it out. Because the Nazis have something big planned, that they think will take over the world.

What I liked: the world building. There were surprises around every corner as a reader, and even though the team didn't know each other that well, they still never forgot their common goal. When Hagen discovers what is really going on in the castle, he does everything that he can to try and stop the Nazis, even if he doesn't have much experience at strategic planning or even fighting in the war. Hagen never loses his integrity, and none of the team ever quits trying to complete the mission, not matter what is thrown at them. I liked the friendship that is built up between all the characters within the timeline of the story.

What I didn't like: nothing.

Overall impression: good characters, a story that kept me turning the pages and guessing. The focus is not romance, but rather the characters the story. Told in third person POV from Hagen's POV. I had initially rated this a 4 star read, but when I tried to think of something I didn't like, I couldn't, so it got bumped up to 5 stars.

*I received a copy through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I couldn't really get into this one. WW2 is always interesting and I love werewolves, but I found myself want more and not getting it.
The writing was good, but I just wasn't feeling the delivery.

I really wanted to love this book but sadly it fell slightly short for me and I abandoned it about a quarter the way through.
Nothing against the book or the writing, it just wasn't a fit for me.
Sorry

An interesting premise, but not too historically accurate from what I can remember about World War II. It's a decent horror book, if not a bit violent for some tastes. Not for everyone for sure, but it may appeal to Saw fans with historical interests.

Generally, it was a decent book, however, I did find it quite hard to get into at the start and the story itself, unfortunately, didn't really capture my attention as I found myself having to stop reading for a while before coming back to it. But although all of this I enjoyed most of what the story gave and I wish I got into it more.

I should have done research on the author before diving into this book, so maybe I could have been prepared. I didn't hate the book, but I'm also not going to read it again. It was incredibly violent to the point of being gratuitous. Some people are into that, but I am not.
I enjoyed the idea, a group of soldiers in WWII stumble across something supernatural in Nazi Germany and go through hell trying to put a stop to it. I would have loved this book if there wasn't so many chapters of detailed descriptions of torture. AGAIN: I didn't look up the author or their other books, so this is my fault.

The chemistry between Hagen and the other characters, especially Liam, was fun and kept my going through the whole thing. Other than my own personal tastes, the book was really well done and will be enjoyed by other people.

I enjoy historical fiction (especially if it’s during the early to mid-20th century) with a supernatural twist thrown in. The fact that this had an lgbtq romance just made the idea of this story all the more enticing. So, it was a real disappointment that this book fell flat in a lot of areas.
One of it’s biggest faults was the lack of developed characters; and that included the main ones. Everyone was very one dimensional and denoted to their surface roles (hero, love interest, bully, power hungry villain, etc.) and then that’s all they were. Hagen was pretty much a Mary Sue, Liam was nothing but his love prize for the end of the story, and the other soldiers in their unit were so one note that I usually forgot who was who. One of the few nice character characteristics was the Professor in a leadership role, especially since women aren’t usually featured in such a way during this time period.
The plot was also not as developed as it could be. I felt like I was reading the skeleton of a story, as if the author simply took their outline and then added some descriptors and dialogue. There would also be huge info dumps provided by characters when needed instead of the story slowly revealing important information as it progressed. There was also a bit of a lack of world building. While most have a general idea of what things were like during this time period, that doesn’t mean the author should assume everyone does. Also, why did everyone just accept that Hagen basically had a magical sense of smell that he used for tracking and that showed him visions?? Were magic powers the norm in this world? Did the government just know about it so the most of the military was appraised of this fact? And if these things were not the case, then why did Hagen just reveal this skill willy-nilly? Why didn’t he show any sort of caution or fear about having this unexplained ability that wasn’t the norm? It just didn’t make sense and having everyone go along with it for the convenience of the plot is bad writing.
The romance was flat and unrealistic. Mostly it was because Hagen and Liam didn’t have much of personalities to begin with so it was very hard to care about a developing relationship. The way it developed also just didn’t make sense. Homosexuality was illegal in both of their countries during this time, but that wasn’t taken into account by either character as they tried to feel around the other. They should have had more conflicting feelings and been more scared of revealing their feelings since it could result in very dire consequences for both of them. Their sex scene was also awkward, ill-timed, and inaccurate.
If I had anything good to say about this book, it’s that it was an interesting idea and not a bad start to a different take on the werewolf mythos. The author also wasn’t too bad at scene descriptions but they would sometimes just read like a list of descriptors.

This book had a good premise, but the writing failed to deliver. Also there were some pretty big errors that could quickly be solved by a Google. The Nazis would never eat German Chocolate Cake. Errors like that suggest a lack of research or an editing oversight.