***Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review***

I thought I'd give this a try, but I realized I am not that big of a fan of werewolf/witch books. Not really my genre.

It's been a while since I read a story about a werewolf.

Seriously, Mateo is a hot guy. And Alpha is damn one helluva sexy werewolf.

Though Savoie sisters are not a particular fan of werewolves, Evie couldn't resist being near with the artistic Mateo. He asked her to break the curse that making him violent because of Alpha.

The unexpected plot was the one who gave the curse to Mateo. I wasn't able to guess the witch.

I enjoyed reading the first story in the series. Hopefully, I will be given a chance with the rest of the Savoie's stories especially the eldest.

Thank you to Victory Editing and Netgalley for the ARC!

4.5 Stars

If this is what happens when Ms. Cross tries new genres then I will be making lists of things she can try her hand at after this. Wolf Gone Wild was everything I was hoping for!

Evie was the epitome of nerdish quirkiness and I absolutely loved her. She was funny, sweet and sassy.

Mateo, and Alpha his very present wolf part, are in desperate need of Evie’s help. If Mateo is to remain sane, then he needs to break the spell that is keeping him from being able to shift. Alpha is now constantly talking to him and pushing his need for blood and violence on him, making him literally schizophrenic.

Mateo was charming and sexy, with Alpha pushing the protective and possessiveness of a shifter to a whole new level. One of my favorite things in this whole story was Alpha’s interventions in conversations. They mostly had me rolling on the floor from laughing (except the haunted house scene… that one is h.o.t. HOT).

I must confess that I was waiting for a little more action as in other books by Ms. Cross, but the nerdy humor made up for it. There’s also a whole lot of new characters to get to know, as in all of Evie’s sisters, and I just can’t wait to get their stories!

I found Wolf Gone Wild incredibly entertaining and fun. With enough suspense to keep you guessing, hot chemistry and some sexiness, I absolutely adored Evie and Mateo’s (and Alpha’s) story.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Of course I couldn’t pass up the offer to read another one of Juliette Cross’ amazing urban fantasy books 😍 I was provided an arc of Wolf Gone Wild to review and share my thoughts. This book is the first in her new series called Stay A Spell. Of course I was obviously going to love this! I’m such a sucker for Urban Fantasy novels and Juliette can rly write a fantastic book😍 Anyways read on for the rest of the review!
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𝓟𝓵𝓸𝓽: First off can we just talk about how good the story line is?! Basically it’s following Mateo who is a wolf shifter who is currently suffering from a two split personality fighting against the wolf inside him. Mateo is the sweetest *swoon* and so vastly different from his wolf it was honestly pretty funny to see how they interact (yes he talks to his own wolf haha). Mateo meets Evie, a witch who can undo hex spells, and asks her if she is able to disconnect himself from the wolf tearing up inside him.
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𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓻𝓪𝓬𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓼: Besides The storyline just following Evie and Mateo there’s loads of funny characters tossed into the mix! Evie comes from a big family of witches so there was definitely a lot of banter between her and her sisters.
Overall, all the characters had a lot of depth to their personality and I especially connected to Evie who is a wanna be comic illustrator wanting to publish her own graphic novel but too worried that no one would like it. Plus she is a total geek on tv shows, movies and comics which I loved. Since I actually want to publish my own comic one day and I’m a nerd my self it was great to really connect to a character for once 😂
ALSO can we just talk about the fact that both Mateo and Evie are artists! Mateo honestly does it all omg I love him haha 😂😍
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𝓡𝓸𝓶𝓪𝓷𝓬𝓮- This book had the perfect balance between adventure and romance! Evie and Mateo got along great together and there was definitely a lot of chemistry between the two💕
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Overall Juliette killed it on another FANTASTIC book, I cant wait till the second book in this series comes out!! Thanks for reading😊

You know I’ve been on the hunt for a good paranormal romance. I’ve been for a while now (years!). I’m kicking myself for not picking up Juliette Cross before now. I’ll admit the pretty cover did it for me this time. So cute I just had to read it. Plus I love stories set in NOLA and a romance between a witch and a shifter. WOLF GONE WILD took me by surprise. It’s a fun paranormal romantic comedy that I just didn’t want to put down.

Mateo is a cursed werewolf. He hasn’t been able to shift and he can actually hear his wolf talking to him constantly. The hex put on him is slowly driving him crazy and he decides to seek the best hex breaker in the city to fix him. The Savoie sisters don’t deal with werewolfs but Evie decides to take a chance on helping him.

Let’s be clear about the star of this show. The conversations between Mateo and his wolf, who goes by the name Alpha, are hysterical and endearing. I couldn’t get enough of the two of them. Then there’s the Savoie sisters, who are all pretty great as well. If you are a fan of Kresley Cole’s humor you’ll definitely appreciate this bunch.

But I can’t sell the romance short. Evie and Mateo are perfect together. They have to overcome a little dash of prejudice to be together but they are surprisingly very low key and low angst. They were just delightful!

Juliette Cross’s writing was excellent as well and she’s done a great job setting up a few romances that I’m dying to get my hands on in this series. But I’ll also be picking up her backlist soon because I have much to catch up on.

Wildly entertaining and beautifully written. The chemistry in this book was intoxicating and kept me invested in the love story as well as the plot. Really enjoyed the characters.

Thank you to the publisher for the review copy! I was really excited to dive into this book as I love a witch meets werewolf romance but WOLF GONE WILD was disappointing. The characters were irritating, the plot slow and boring and I couldn't get behind or root for the romance as it just wasn't there for me.

While the premise for this book seemed right up my alley, I didn't get far enough into it to really see how the plot played out. I DNF'd this at about 15% because I didn't like the inner dialogue of the wolf. He was just such a chauvinistic asshole that I didn't want to keep reading it for the entire book. Maybe one of these days I'll pick it up again and see if he stays that way throughout the entire book.

This was just ok. It has some serious pacing issues for me. For most of the book nothing really happens until all of a sudden everything happens. I like the characters and I would like to know more about the Savoie sisters but I don't know if I'll read any more in the series because this one just didn't do it for me.

I think one of my preferred erotic trope is the seduce me wolf one. <del>I know I’m trash haha. Sorry not sorry...</del>
Oh my....the author read my weird trope comment. I'll excuse myself....
Oh my god. I got approved for an ARC. Thank you Juliette Cross and Netgalley for providing me with an Ebook ARC in exchange for an honest review. I find myself immensely enjoying this kind of smut lol.

Okay, all I can say is this is definitely a story about a few witches, an angry wolf and his <del>oddly less horny</del> calmer human, and a nasty hex.
The good: mmmm, I shipped it. Honestly a good read if you're down to ignore things and just want a bit of a raunchy night read. I had some fun and rolled my eyes when the wolf wanted to do two things: hump and bump while the human wanted to create and be more civilized. I already had a pretty good idea as to what was going to happen, but reading the blurb, one would if they had read a lot or enough of this kind of romance.

The bad: honestly, the only thing that spoiled it for me was the fact that the wolf only had two emotions. I kind of wanted a different breakthrough for 2020 in the wolf genre, like maybe he still wants to get it on, but he is a little smarter and thinks about how to actually woo her (since alpha does not just mean strongest, but smartest too hopefully). Or perhaps he slowly sweetens out (alongside the human he inhabits) and thinks of their future family and what they could do together like snowball fights or about later hanging out in their favorite bar or even about introducing them to the pack. I don't know, but it seemed a little repetitive after a while of listening to the wolf's thoughts.

The gem: Heh, I enjoyed that the male's name was Mateo....Mate-o, get it?
Like: You're my mate......ohh....

This was *such* a fun read for me. Paranormal romances often stray more into the darker side of things; with creatures that mostly come out at night, I suppose that's natural, but this was the complete opposite. In Wolf Gone Wild, witches, werewolves and vampires live in New Orleans, running businesses and throwing parties.

Mateo is a werewolf who has lost the ability to shift, which is driving his inner wolf (Alpha) crazy, so he seeks the help of local witch Evie who breaks hexes, hoping she can help him. But, it's not as simple as just casting a spell, so the two are thrown together as they attempt to find the cure. The chemistry between Evie and Mateo can't be denied, and there is so much delicious tension in this story.

There are so many great characters in this; Evie's sisters are all brilliant and I'm looking forward to their stories. But the best character of all was Alpha - a typical 'bad boy' werewolf; the back and forth between Mateo and Alpha as the latter attempted to wrest control was brilliant and a definite highlight. The rest of the series can't come soon enough!

Another stellar novel with amazing, realistic characters; full of emotion and I couldn't put it down til I finished it.

WILD WOLF GONE is the first book in the “Stay a Spell” paranormal romance series by Juliette Cross. The cover and description lured me into reading this book, and it ended up being totally worth it. This is a fun and sexy romance, with the hint of danger lurking on the periphery, but with the focus being on the main relationship. I think of this story as being set in a sort of fairy tale environment or alternate reality because of the fantastic elements to the world created by Juliette Cross in WILD WOLF GONE. Rather than any gritty urban setting, there are witch-run bars and new age crystal shops, along with bookshops run by deliciously dangerous and witty vampires. Yum! In this world, there has been a lot of bad blood between witches and werewolves – usually with werewolves in the role of supreme jerk – so it’s ironic that werewolf Mateo Cruz is forced to turn to hex breaking witch Evie Savoie for help. Sparks fly the moment they meet.

Mateo feels like a man divided – between his human self and his wolf self, referred to as Alpha. This internal, and often dueling dialogue, provides entertainment for the reader as well as a window into Mateo’s psyche. The problem he desperately needs help with, is that his ability to shift is somehow being interfered with and suppressed. Evie is determined to fix the supernatural problem and ends up bringing in her sisters to help. As Evie works with Mateo to try and come up with a solution for him, they spend oodles of time together getting to know each other and feeding their attraction. I love the way Juliette Cross slowly builds the relationship, and therefore the exquisite sexual tension as well. Evie is a total geek and Mateo is led into her geekdom, and they end up bonding over it. I love discovering the many sides of Mateo – artist, alpha werewolf, sensitive friend, and supernatural hottie. Likewise, Evie is a flawed character but strong in many ways and not insipid.

WILD WOLF GONE is full of strong, magical women, with a resplendent and red-hot romance for readers to feast on. The supporting characters in WILD WOLF GONE are all great and add to the richness of the storytelling. I’m not sure which characters I most want to read more about next, but the sexual tension between Evie’s sister Jules and vampire head honcho Ruben is wonderfully intense. I eagerly await the next installment in the “Stay a Spell” series.

I really wanted to like this paranormal romance. This one didn’t impress me. I just couldn’t get into the story or romance.

This was my first supernatural romance and I was very intrigued by the premise. Unfortunately I came to realize that supernatural romances aren't really my thing. I just couldn't get behind the "alpha" voice and felt the plot was too slow moving for me.

A contemporary witch/werewolf romance with enough stumbling blocks to keep me from wanting more. Shifter Mateo Cruz is unable to change and with his werewolf invading his waking hours and exerting more control, he turns to the Savoies, a family of powerful New Orleans witches, for some magicla help. Evie Savoie, the family's Hex Breaker, is instantly drawn to him and the two get closer as they zero in on the curse and it's consequences.

Overall, I liked this book but I just didn't love it. The "insta-love/lust" between Evie and Mateo wasn't for me (one of my least favorite tropes) and all the aggressive werewolf lust/sex tropes and comments were a major turnoff for me. Given the cover and write-up I was hoping for a gentler werewolf romance so the mismatch of expectations and reality made the book a dud. The magic and supernatural social systems also felt less than clear; the audience gets information as we need it, but I kept having magic questions that didn't get answered.

The book did have its pluses. Evie is an artistic, pop-culture savy heroine with untapped potential and strength. Mateo's a sculptur and a gentle man with hyper-alpha desires; he's Evie's number one fan and cheerleader, and doesn't feel threatened by her close ties with her family.

*I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

I haven't read a lot of paranormal romance in the past but I think I've found a new favorite. I'm familiar with paranormal tropes due to my excessive fanfiction reading over the year and this felt like a favorite fanfic but with original characters.

A werewolf is on the hunt for a hex breaker to end his curse. He finds a witch for the job and her powerful sisters. This story is full of romance, humor, nerdy references (particularly Star Wars) that gave my geeky soul life, and adventure. The romance was sweet, steamy, and perfect and I love these characters. Even the secondary characters like the sisters were well done.

I absolutely loved it and I can't wait for the next installment in the series. Hoping she'll give me romance for every sister because I need that in my life. I'm excited to try more paranormal romance now!

I found the larger world building to be far more interesting than the (sometimes overly graphic and creepy) romance that served as the centerpiece of the novel. I think I would have liked it better had the mystery been designated the pain plot device.

4.5

Werewolf Mateo Cruz has been unable she shift for the past three months. And what’s getting worse is that his wolf is making his own displeasure with the situation known loud and clear. Believing he’s been cursed, Mateo decides to enlist the help of witch Evie Savoie who’s a known hex-breaker.

Evie’s family is a powerful coven within New Orleans. She and her five sisters have a big presence. One of their important rules, however, is not working with werewolves due to their volatile nature. But when Mateo walks into Evie’s shop and she sees how much he’s hurting, she can’t turn him away. As Mateo’s wolf takes an instant liking to Evie, neither of them can fathom the depth of the hex surrounding Mateo.

Wolf Gone Wild begins a new series for Juliette Cross. While I haven’t read all of her previous books/series, as soon as I started Wolf Gone Wild I felt like it had a lighter tone to it.

One of the things that stood out the most for me was the mythology. Easily recognizable in that of werewolves, vampires, witches, demons, etc., but with enough little tweaks that make it feel fresh. Such as witches each having a specialty that their magic is geared toward, live Evie with breaking hexes.

Most notably, I loved how Mateo and his wolf, Alpha, are pretty much separate entities inhabiting one body. Juliette Cross does a great job of making them both distinct in the way they act and speak that even without having Alpha’s dialogue helpfully stand out in bold lettering, I feel confident that I would know which one of them was running the show at any given moment. Because if the wolf is Alpha, that kinda puts Mateo himself in the Beta role, and I liked how they played off of each other. Frankly, their interactions had me laughing out loud in a few parts.

I also found myself wanting to be best friends with Evie, or wanting to be adopted into the Savoie sisterhood. Evie loves all things superhero and Star Wars anything pop culture. Her sunny personality is so infectious. Juliette Cross did great with keeping each sister distinct and unique, and also setting up the romances to come for the others. All so intriguing.

The only complaint I have is that I wanted the story to be more involved in solving Mateo’s conflict. Basically, I just wanted more of a show of how Evie normally works as a hex-breaker and we only really skimmed the surface of how her magical talent works. True, it’s the first time she’s working with a werewolf, but I would only think that would open the door for more detailing in how she normally does her work. Instead I felt like we kind of just stumbled upon the resolution which I felt didn’t give enough opportunity to explore the conflict, because when all was said and done, I’m really interested in how everything originated.

Overall, though, I really enjoyed this book. It was full of magic and romance and being a bit on the lighter side meant I breezed right through this one. I can’t wait to become better acquainted to the other supernaturals inhabiting Cross’s New Orleans and see how they interact with the Savoie sisters.

Mateo is a werewolf who’s been unable for shift to several months. His wolf side, who calls himself Alpha, is getting increasingly frustrated and vocal about it. Matteo is convinced that he’s been cursed and seeks out a witch who can help.

Evie is the second oldest of the Savoie sisters, an influential witch family in New Orleans. The sisters each have a different magical specialty and Evie’s is hex-breaking. I loved the bond between the sisters, as well as how different they each are. I’m hoping that each sister will get her own book in the series so we get to know them better. Those big, loud, nosy paranormal families are always so much fun!

The chemistry between Evie and Mateo is immediately evident, though they both try to ignore it. But Alpha is happy to tell us exactly what he’s really thinking. At times his voice provides some comedy, but I don’t think that’s always the case. I’ve read a few reviews commenting on how light and fluffy this story is but I found all the magical, curse-related elements surprisingly dark. I think the levity comes from Evie’s geeky personality, her Deadpool t-shirts, and the way the couple bonds over Star Wars. Those scenes are my favorites!

I enjoyed the interesting spin Cross puts on her werewolf mythology. They’re all descended from the same original werewolf who was cursed by a witch. She also ties in historical references like the Spanish Inquisition and the Beast of Gevaudan. I loved how much detail she managed to work in. What we don’t get is the pack politics that you often find in paranormal romance because Mateo is a lone wolf. That void is filled by the witch covens who have their own political machinations. In addition to the werewolves and witches, the world features vampires and grims who I’m hoping to learn more about in a later book.

My only issue is that there’s a thing that happens in the second half that should have made both characters uncomfortable based on how they felt the first time it happened. They weren’t and they didn’t explain why they weren’t uncomfortable anymore, which made me uncomfortable.

But overall I feel like Cross had created a rich world with a large supporting cast of interesting and diverse characters, which means there’s lots of potential for the series to continue. At least two other future couple seem to be set up already. I’m excited to see where it goes.