This was such a great read! I really enjoyed getting Julia and Arthur's story! I just love this world, and it makes me a little sad, because according to the author's note after Wonderland in Shifters and Mistletoe, this is the final book in the series. I enjoy it so much, and it's a little sad to say goodbye to these characters and this world!

This book does run parallel with Season of the Wolf, though it continues on after that one finishes, because both Julia and Constantine are taken in by the Pack at the same time. And it was a little strange, because it's been a minute since I read Season of the Wolf, but once I got through the weirdness in my brain, it was really great! Though it does have a brief beginning of what was to come.

Arthur does add something interesting to this world, because of who and what he is, the rage that he has to keep contained. I mean, her journey is bigger, but that doesn't make his any less important, and I'm really glad that they found their happiness, even after his attempts at giving her a choice.

I thought it was really clever what Julia did, with her aunt. It killed two birds with one stone, the threat of her aunt, and the threat of hunters after Varya. Just more proof that she was fitting in, not afraid to be brutal, and I loved it!

This was such a fantastic read, and I can't wait to see what Maria Vale writes next!

What a breathlessly raw and passionately wild adventure that will leave you completely open and utterly vulnerable to the truth that bubbles up from the depths of your soul! Wolf in the Shadows is truly a haunting tale of learning who a person truly is while embracing every part of themselves. There is no ruin in finding yourself. There is only truth and honesty in that noble search. True love and beautiful vulnerability only comes from accepting who were you born to become and then fulfilling that purpose. I know of no better way of living your life then in the purity of your true self.

Julia thinks she has the perfect life. She has a protective Uncle and a possessive fiance who keep her close. However, when her life is forcibly turned upside down does she stop to really think about her life. Question begin to bubble up about whether her life was built on trust and love or lies and deceit. In the midst of this personal crisis, she thankfully has someone to lean on as she learns to live all over again. Arthur is charged with looking after Julia, and his quiet patience and gentle guidance is exactly what she needs to rebuild her life one step at a time. He isn't sure what to think about Julia, but slowly be begins to realize there is more to her then even she thinks. When his heart begins to embrace her, he worries that she will be put in danger. Can Arthur guide Julia on this path without pulling her into his darkness, or will she bring a warm and comforting light into the shadows that surround him?

I was thoroughly intrigued by Arthur and his role in the Pack. It is unique from other werewolf mythology I have read which made me want to learn all there is about it. He is a truly unique individual who I gravitated to along with Julia. He may be surrounded in mystery, but Julia was never afraid or him. In truth, Julia wanted to learn more about him the closer she got to him. She knew that there was something special and more about him that she longed to uncover and unlock. Likewise, Arthur knew that Julia was more then she could dream. He wanted her to reach for the dreams that her soul longed to see fulfilled. Together, they grew, melded, and become a strong anchor the Pack. This story is too beautiful for mere words. You must hold it and savor with your heart and soul to truly understand the depth of its majesty and power.

Maria Vale has created a brilliant story of unwavering hope and transforming love. There is nothing easy about this story, and it is not comfortable, but it is true and raw at its very core. What a powerful message and a beautiful journey! I look forward to more fantastic stories from this wildly creative author!

This series has been a favorite from the start. Such a unique twist on the wolf shifter trope. Each book has been unique and interesting. This one is also interesting. HOwever, it is probably my least favorite of the series.

Julia has been taken hostage?? Kept?? by the Great North Pack. She is trying to find her way as a shifter who has never shifted. She is very low in rank and is given to Arthur to bring up in the ways of the pack. That is about all the story there is. There is some tension from the human world and from the wife of the man who tried to take down the pack. Other than that, just an ok read for me.

I still love the serie sas one of my all time favorites. As a finale book and just the content in general--I would have been ok stopping the series on the previous book.

Written by Maria Vale, the latest novel in the Legend of All Wolves series follows Arthur, the new Omega, and the shifter Julia, niece of the terrible man who brought destruction to Homeland, could they find love in one another?

If I pretend that the characters from the last books aren’t in this book, I really like this novel. Other than how confusing the timeline and plot are. I enjoy that this is another novel from the point of view of one of the wolves who has only left Homeland once, and particularly of the actual Werewolf in the group – that is the one that has the capability of becoming a berserker and going on a killing rampage killing everything, including other werewolves. Arthur has worked so, so hard to control himself, and after killing the traitor takes his punishment and accepts having to take care of and teach the Shifter Julia.

Julia is thrust into a culture that she doesn’t know and forced to confront a side of herself that she has always been told to never touch, to not think about.

Another werewolf novel, but if you enjoyed the previous novels in this series, give this a shot. the beginning of this novel is very confusing and I honestly had no idea what the plot/how we got to Arthur being sliced open until at least halfway through the book.

I did receive a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

I have to admit, I was a bit lost. The romance between Arthur and Julia was buried in a back story that was complex and interesting. I also really liked the author’s style of writing because it was beautifully expressive. That said, I didn’t feel like I fully comprehended the story so I wouldn’t say that this is a fully standalone story. There were a few moments that made me a bit uncomfortable, address pack politics with killing, etc. but overall, the author’s writing style was great and perhaps I will start at the beginning to get a deeper understanding of this book. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for an early copy.

Wolf In The Shadows was an awesome read. It was also a good end to a wonderful series. This story wasn’t what I expected at all which is a good thing. There was more to Arthur than previously disclosed which was a pleasant surprise. There was a lot more to Julia too. I loved this journey of self discovery, found family and finding your place. I will miss these characters and this world. It was an absolute pleasure to immerse myself in this book and series. I definitely recommend them.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks/Casablanca for the ARC. I am voluntarily reviewing this book. Apparently this is the 5th in a series (I had no idea) and I think you have to read them in order. I could not figure out what was going on. I felt like its written in a secret code. So if I am being honest-I skimmed this, apparently I just wasn't interested. I don't think this stands up as a stand alone. So sadly for me this is a 2.5 nothing against the author but maybe make it more clear its number 5. Sorry if I missed it. I am sure many will love this.

Very misogynistic book. I didn't care for this series. I wanted to like it but just couldn't get into it. It was well written though and hardly any errors!

Another all-consuming story set in the Homelands of the Great North Pack.
Julia is shifter who grew up as human amongst humans.
Arthur is a wolf at the bottom of his pack.
When their paths cross, things change.
Superbly written. Excellent worldbuilding. Great characters.
I read Maria Vale's books and I am immediately transported into a world that's wild and primal and unforgiving.
A wonderful balance between grit and gore and laugh out loud.
I really don't want this series to end.

Thanks to Netgalley for a copy of this book.

Julia's world is disrupted when she and her fiancé are kidnapped and carried to a compound by wolves. There, surrounded by strangers she is dismissed and ignored until she meets Arthur. She eventually notices the huge differences between her abusive fiancé and the attentive Arthur. While navigating this new community she is living in she is learning more about herself and testing her strength and resilience all while learning the rules of this pack and navigating the politics.

This is a sweet and at times heartbreaking love story between two people, one who does not believe they deserve love and one who does not know exactly what love is. The hierarchy and the rules of this group was very unusual but interesting. The story is raw and beautiful. Julia and Arthur are both finding out who they are through each other and realizing their strength regardless of the obstacles that are being placed in their way.

** spoiler alert ** *I received an e-ARC via Netgalley, with thanks to Sourcebooks. The author and I are mutuals and friends on Twitter; I have received gifted books from her in the past.

NB: This review contains spoilers for earlier books in the series and for Wolf in the Shadows.

This is an extremely difficult review for me to write because, as many of you know, Wolf in the Shadows is the final book of one of my very favourite series. Books 1-4 were 5* reads, and the second, A Wolf Apart, is particularly special to me. But I really struggled with this final story, which didn't make emotional sense at the level of the romance and left me feeling unsatisfied with the overall arc.

For those unfamiliar with The Legend of All Wolves, this is not a series you can read as standalones - all five books overlap to some extent on the timeline and, while each book ends with a HEA/HFN for the focal couple, there is a strong through-line plot about the long term future of the Great North, America's last great wolf shifter pack. The action of Wolf in the Shadows runs parallel to the previous installment, Season of the Wolf, and goes only a little beyond it to the final denouement. It picks up on the relationship between the Pack Omega, Arthur, and Julia, the niece of the Pack's nemesis, August Leveraux, which was teased during Constantine and Evie's story. Both August and Julia belong to a different species of wolf shifter who, unlike the Great North, are able to resist the shift during the full moon and therefore live undetected amongst humans. The long game of the series has been the enmity between August and the Pack, who he has vowed to exterminate. Although he was killed at the end of Book 3, his mantel has now passed to his ex-wife Drusilla, a person that even other family members - including Julia - has serious cause to fear. As the book opens Julia is a prisoner of the Great North, having been captured along with her fiance Cassius and August's right-hand man Constantine during an attack earlier in the series.

Life with the Pack couldn't be any more different from Julia's previous existence - rather than planning the society wedding of the year, she's thrust into a world of fur, communal labour, the hunt, and the slow turning of the seasons. At first she's desperate to escape, but a moment of compassion from Arthur stays with her and when he's in need of her support in turn, she gives it. Their relationship unfolds from small moments of connection, as Julia comes to understand the lure of the Wild and the sanctity of Homelands. When the narrative ramps up towards the final showdown between Drusilla and the Great North, it's clear that Julia is the final piece of the puzzle of their long-term survival.

There is so much to love about both this set-up and the early parts of the book. Coming back to the Pack after a year of waiting was a balm - as always Maria Vale writes beautifully about nature and the relationship between animal and place. Seeing Julia open her eyes to the world around her and embrace her Wild wolfy self was glorious. I relished the glimpses of the characters I've come to know and love: Leonora and her Human Behaviour classes for the young wolves were just as charming and funny as always; cameos from Elijah and Thea were a delight. And Arthur has been a persistently intriguing figure in the background of the series, so it was satisfying to see him come to the fore and to learn the dark secret that he's been carrying, unbeknownst to us.

However, I felt that Wolf in the Shadows was fragmented and disjointed in ways that, over the course of the story, compromised the whole. There was a lot that simply didn't make sense to me - the logic of the plot choices wasn't organic. Characters seemed to switch and change personality as the plot demanded it, doing things which didn't align with their personas in previous books or even in this one. I particularly didn't like the way Thea was made to act throughout. Important conversations weren't had; emotional conflicts were resolved with the most throwaway of lines or gestures; so many threads from the rich tapestry of the series as a whole were left hanging. Some of these are picked up in previous books which, as I said, overlap or run concurrently on the timeline, but many are not. When it comes the ending is brutal but the consequences aren't addressed; Arthur and Julia's HEA is sketched very briefly, even though they have both experienced serious trauma in the lead up to it. The complex arc of the Pack HEA, which was the most extraordinary feature of the series as a whole, is wrapped up quite simply in very broad brushstrokes.

In addition, there were some specific elements of Wolf in the Shadows that left me distinctly uncomfortable. Firstly, there are three sexual assaults in the book that go unexplored and unprocessed; one by Julia against Arthur and two against Julia by strangers (one of which ends with Julia using violence on her attacker). There are also two episodes of what I read as dubious consent in Arthur and Julia's relationship. It's the assault by Julia that really stayed with me and which I struggle to explain or justify in the context of the book. It happens when Arthur is in a state of extreme vulnerability, where he has placed his trust in her and has no ability to consent; later, Julia equates it to groping someone when they've been roofied. And yet it's allowed to pass without comment or consequence, in a way that made me deeply upset. Secondly, there is a take on the 'third act break up' in the last quarter of the book that seemed unusually cruel and callous (as well as making little plot or emotional sense). Again, the consequences of that decision are not addressed and a reconciliation is affected during an otherwise bloody action sequence without any further reference to what has happened. It was both unsatisfying and souring. Finally, there is an accidental pregnancy plot which, given the implications of wolf pregnancies and Arthur's stated fear of having children for his own reasons, was poorly handled from my perspective.

I don't quite know what happened to make the change between Book 4 and Book 5, except that it must have been written during the hellscape of the last couple of years. I'm sure authors, editors, and publishers have all struggled to do their best work during the pandemic and everything else going on, just as we all have. Everyone deserves grace in these circumstances. I'm sad and sorry that Wolf in the Shadows didn't work better for me and, despite its problematic elements, I hope it gives other dedicated readers closure on a wonderful series. My feelings about this book in no way detract from my love of the proceeding four, which I will continue to cherish and reread with great joy.

Julia has lived in the human world as a pampered human not knowing she is a werewolf. She doesn’t question the hierarchical world she lives in. She doesn’t question the abusive, controlling needs of her fiancé, willing her to submit. Once, her uncle showed her what it meant to shift but it was so traumatic she keeps it in her subconscious. She just knows it is bad and should never happen. Then her fiancé takes her on a ‘trip’ with a bunch of men who will be hunting wolves and they are attacked by those wolves. She is taken, along with her fiancé, to the Pack headquarters where she is put in the care of Arthur. But she does not understand this world.

Arthur is also a werewolf, lowest in the hierarchy of the pack. He does not understand Julia or her world. He lives a precarious life in the pack, knowing that he will be killed if he gives in to his berserker/werewolf nature. Although he doesn’t truly understand Julia he begins to see parts of her that others do not see. He begins to discover that she is “curious, attuned, and brave;” a person who does not want to submit to fools. He is unsophisticated and vulnerable in some ways. His is the perspective of the wolf and the dual POV chapters give insights to him, to Julia and to both worlds- the Pack and Human.

As she spends time with the Pack and as she falls in love with Arthur Julia is changing, coming into herself. For Julia this is a process of discovery. What she never knew- existing as a wolf, being attracted to a man, knowing herself, finding her own agency- is slowly opening itself to her.

But there are villainous outside forces, her family, that want to destroy the Pack. Will they lose it all or will Arthur and Julia find their love and place in the world?

What an intense soulful love story! The author’s world-building is magnificent. The writing is beautiful and lyrical- it is so easy to just get lost in. I could barely put it down- I picked it right back up again as soon as I made my coffee in the morning!

This is a part of the Legend of All Wolves series but can be read as a standalone. I had not read any others in the series but, after reading this marvelous book, I’ve just gotten the first in the series.

Thanks to NetGalley and to Sourcebooks for this ARC in return for an honest review.

Enthralling! A different kind of shifter tale - a tale of self-discovery and independence and building real love, trust, and belonging. Strong emphasis on shifter society, politics, history, and hierarchy. Highly recommended!

I have adored this series! The way Maria Vale presents the culture and experiences of the pack and the experience of being a wolf is fascinating and somehow much more real than other books about people who are also animals. Julia is a very pampered, decorative daughter of a shifter family. She was encouraged and taught by her family to essentially reject her wolf side and live life as a decorative accent to the alpha males in her life. She has, for the most part, gone along with it. Until her Uncle is killed and she and her fiancé are brought in to the great north pack.

Arthur is a special kind of wolf - he is an omega in his pack hierarchy - but also falls into a category of wolf that is something close to a berserker. He exercises fierce control over his nature - but when a leader within the pack betrayed them all he killed the man. Pack law dictated that he be punished for it in a way that is hard for anyone outside the pack to understand. Including Julia who has been dropped into a a situation far beyond anything her life had prepared her for.

She and Arthur get pushed together by the pack for less than kind reasons - and they form a strong connection to each other. Like the other books in the series - this book talks really seriously about how we relate to nature - and our families both chosen and blood. The romantic relationship between Julia and Arthur is really beautiful to read - and their personal growth is also extremely solid.

Overall - I really loved this one - but I definitely would recommend reading all the books in the series. It isn't necessary - but the setting and feel of the books might be disorienting without that history and understanding.

I received this as an ARC via NetGalley, but these opinions are all my own.

I am very sad that Wolf in the Shadows is the last book in the Legends of All Wolves series. Maria Vale has created a very original and intriguing world and characters. I have been invested in this series from the start which was four years ago. Arthur was a wolf that I wanted to know more about and I was pretty excited when I saw that this book was his. I had my doubts about the leading lady Julia, but Maria did a great job with her character development. This book was suspenseful, funny, sad, and romantic. The story warmed my heart and I loved how everything developed. I loved seeing what all the characters from previous books were up to.

Arthur and Julia didn't make sense together in the beginning, but throughout the book, I saw how perfect they were for each other. I especially loved the growth Julia went through in this book. When we were first introduced to her she was a spoiled brat but she became an incredible shifter in this book. She finally became the person she was meant to be with the help of Arthur and the pack. The transformation was amazing! I am going to miss the world Maria Vale has created. There is just no series out there that has the wilderness of the wolves in this one. There were brutal moments but they just made perfect sense. One thing that was missing was an epilogue, I would've loved to see what all the characters were up to in the future. I love Maria's writing and can't wait to see what amazing stories and characters she will come up with next.

I got through about 30% of this book and had to stop. I found no connection to the writing or the characters.

I am sure someone else will love this book much more I just was not captured.

Thank you Netgalley for this read.

Review can also be found on *Milky Way of Books*

The final book in the Legend of the Wolves series was amazing leaving the bittersweet feeling I always get when a series I loved for almost 4 years ended. The Pack tries to pick up from where they left after the events of the previous books with two prisoners of the Shifters, one being Julie. Her care is given to Arthur the one they consider the Omega of the Pack but one who also hides a terrible power.

The story is not only about how the wolves live and their daily lives but moreover, it is about a woman who finds her true self, after being groomed to believe that she needed protection, making her inferior to her true potential.

A testament to Maria Vale's gorgeous writing, we see the POV of both Julie and Arthur as they learn from one another and struggle through the Pack dynamics and their own feelings. I enjoyed the descriptions, the throwback to a specific forever wolf, which always makes my heart ache, the amazing beauty of nature as seen from both human and wolven eyes.

Definitely recommend reading the whole series when it comes out so you won't have to be tortured like me who had to wait year after year.

Wolf in the Shadows (Legend of All Wolves #5) by Maria Vale
Contemporary supernatural romance with a YA/New Adult vibe
Sourcebooks Casablanca, July 26, 2022

Pampered Shifter Julia Martel* has been molded into a superficial accessory, trained to accommodate others, particularly powerful men. When circumstances drag her into unfamiliar territory and strip her of all of her privileges she’s forced to choose who she will become. Omega wolf Arthur Graysson is compassionate and dangerous, an irresistible combination that challenges Julia in numerous ways. Fans of this outstanding series will recognize the continuation of this talented author’s distinctive blend of multifaceted characters, layers of emotional intimacy that connect individuals to each other and their communities, and lyrical phrasing that conveys an appreciation for wild beings and places.

This final entry in the series continues the escalating momentum established by the previous stories to hit the ultimate peak before resolving its recurring themes of identity, purpose, homecoming, and redemption with a satisfying conclusion. Readers new to this series should start with the (ironically titled) first book, The Last Wolf, to maximize understanding and enjoyment.

*At the start her character is tediously ego-centric and oblivious, but hang in there because Maria Vale delivers an impressive character development arc.

Content warning: heavy on themes of oppressive misogyny (as if there’s any other type)

Interested in learning more about the unflappable Leonora?
Read “Wonderland” in Shifters and Mistletoe: A Wolf Shifter Novella Collection by Asa Marie Bradley, et al.
Kaering LLC, December 2021