Thanks to Victory Editing, NetGalley, and the author for the ARC.

Alright, here we have a story about Aleck, the Alpha of the MoonShadow pack, who has been exiled after being wrongfully accused of murdering his father, the previous Alpha. We have Selena, a shop owner, good friend, and independent woman. They are mates, and set off on their journey of fated love, while Aleck works to clear his name and regain his leadership of his pack.

Overall, a setup and premise with a lot of potential from this debut author. I enjoyed Aleck's strength and surety, and I enjoyed that Selena was equally determined and strong willed and didn't put up with nonsense.

Stylistically, this was a little rough for a few reasons. I don't know if the random Latin worked here as a language that Aleck would randomly drop phrases of throughout the book, with minimal context or purpose for it. It's a bit pretentious and unnecessary. There's a steady use of italics for emphasis that gets irritating (and also confusing because it's also used for when the characters are talking to themselves and also for when the mates can mind speak), there's a scene where a character is running and every one or two words has a ... To show ... that ... the character ... (etc) is running and out of breath, and there's several choices to elongate words (things like "yesssssss"). It's not necessary and distracting, and makes the writing feel like a lot of lower tier fanfic I've read. There are also a few scattered typos still that I hope get sorted before publication.

Plot wise, I felt like this was two different stories for 2/3 of the book? Aleck is running around trying to to find allies and advance his investigation into who is behind his father's murder and his exile, one story. Aleck and Selena working through their relationship and mate status and dating, a separate story. The two lines took a while to intersect, and when it did, I'm not sure it improved the situation. They have some miscommunications and non communications that aren't super great. Selena has been told Aleck is a werewolf, he sort of dropped some fang then ate a lot of food to prove it, but hasn't really shown her more or talked about his particular situation and what's going on and what it all means. Selena has worked hard to be strong and independent, and we get the sense that she's had some not great relationships before, but I didn't get the sense that she shared that with Aleck. Later, she sees Aleck ... being a werewolf, and promptly panics because turns out, he's a werewolf (Girl.), largely it feels like to superficially create an act three bump in the relationship road. Aleck's investigation seemed pretty light, the building out of the pack hierarchy and world was glossed over, and the battle for his pack felt fairly cursory. (Also, his inspirational speech could have been better.)

I recognize this is the author's debut novel, and that's a great accomplishment and I wish them well as they continue on.