Avail Yourself Touch Of A Wolf Composed By Jez Morrow Displayed As Copy

the characters. At first I really didn't like Channing, he really seemed selfish and like a jerk, He grows on you. I did think Matt was way naive, It was a fun read with just enough angst to make it keep my interest, WUT. EVA.

I DO WUT AH WANT,

update

read this a week ago, but tearing it a new asshole would take just to much energy for me right now,

mostly i'm just sick of looking at it on my "currently reading" sidebar,


SOON This is an amazing book, I loved it because of its many surprises, great characters, and the sense of wonder and quiet analysis that somehow comes through in the writing and fits the main character perfectly.
There is the odd humorous observation and interlude as well, which only makes it an even better story,

Matt is a graduate student who has a lot more brains than common sense, I loved seeing the world through his eyes, He analyzes everything, comes up with the cleverest solutions to the weirdest problems, and is desperate to find "the One", He instinctively trusts John Channing, despite all the evidence to the contrary, His brain tells him he needs to be careful, and leads him to quite a few incorrect conclusions where his relationship with Channing is concerned, His heart sends a clear message from the very start, but he has trouble believing it,

The book basically tells the story of Matt finding out that he can trust his instincts and what they tell him not just about the man he has fallen in love with, but his relationship with that man.
A very interesting read. RereadMy rating went down one star for this book, I think I am more discerning in this genre now than I was three years ago,

What a great book, I was hooked from the first few sentences and and the thrill never ended, Interestingly weird
I mean, overall the effect was, . . weird. I'd like to say it seemed like a weird melange of stuff, but it somehow came together, The portrayal of the withdrawal was framed in a way that seemed realistic, Channing he was just such an adorable child, Well, not a child, but you know what I mean

Channing went on, “Its stripy, Orange, yellow, brown. I saw it as clearly as I see you now, It was coming from the ceiling, straight down on my face, ” He swept his arm over the bed, feeling for a strand of webbing that would prove the spiders existence,
“You know its probably a hallucination,” Matt said,
“Probably,” Channing allowed. “Not good enough. ” He scanned the ceiling. “Kay, Matt. Youre a smart guy. Do you know if there are any real spiders that look like that”
Matt didnt know anything about spiders, “I know you cant see colors in the dark, ”
Channing stopped midsweep. “Youre right. ”
He instantly calmed down, suddenly sleepy again, Channing nodded, satisfied. “Thats a good point. I like that. ” He crawled back into the bed, “Youre the best,” he said, and passed peacefully out,

The wolf thing was really weird at first, but the entire thing forced me to suspend my disbelief so much that after the initial shock, I kind of took it in stride.


I guess it kind of is a light, fluffyish read with some seriousish moments, Parts of it were just ridiculous, though, . . Very good paranormal m/m romance about a grad student who just caught his boyfriend cheating and moved out, He has an uncharacteristic sexual encounter in an alley with a mysterious guy he runs into on the street who later shows up on his fire escape and his life is changed, possibly forever.
Ugh, this book started okay but the middle and the end were all over the place, I guess writing a book is like experimanting with cooking, You can throw everything in the mix and see what you get, But let me tell you something, usually it just end up tasting like shit,

I loved the slutty, dangerous, have seks with a stranger bit, Even the police part and dirty cop bit i could overlook, But throw in a almost two centuries old wolf, a angry ex boyfriend, a talent for making fake identities and spur of the moment escapes and you lost me.


The blurb was so promising that i bought a couple of books in the series, That will teach me to buy before i read a single book in a series, I went into this one not expecting much since this is a subgenre I rarely venture into, It started off okay and my interest was kept up, In fact, I was applauding Matt's decision to walk out on Cord and not fall for his crap, happy that I had a protag with balls, Before I knew it, I was loving the whole story, not just Matt giving Cord the proverbial middle finger to his rationalizations, My favorite part, though, was Matt living with those weres, seeing how precious he became to them even though, in his mind, he was welcomed only because he was useful the same reason why he thought Channing kept him around.


Channing's character was kept at arms length so while I knew everything that went through Matt's mind, Channing remained that shadowy stranger who accosted Matt in the alley at the start of the story.
It wasn't until towards the last quarter or so of the book that I was able to get a better look at him, Yet this isn't a complaint, Just an observation. Morrow did the right thing IMO because, the story being told from Matt's POV, I was able to feel Matt's frustration and insecurity in the face of Channing's guardedness.
That's why I enjoyed that latter part of the book when Channing takes Matt "home" to a sanctuary of sorts for weres,

The introduction of Vickie who was, I think, an exlover of Channing, injected a different type of tension to the earlier one where Channing was to testify in the trial of a druglord.
Whereas the trial contributed to the suspense, Vickie's presence revved up the romantic tension as Matt's jealousy and insecurity is spectacularly displayed, resulting in Matt, in wolf form, biting Vickie's balls.
Believe me, he deserved it, While Channing, true to form, never gives details of what went down between him and Vickie, it's clear the two had a history together and Vickie wants to keep that in the present.
Especially when competition, in the form of Matt, turns up with Channing,

There were a couple of things I didn't understand and perhaps someone else who reads it can enlighten me:that whole conversation about 'Lakota' being the Red Indian Channing turned.
I didn't understand Matt's reaction as if he'd suddenly realized something significant because there was no further reference to the entire Lakota thing,why did Vickie bite Matt Turning him into a wolf would have made him immune to sickness and Matt, at the time, was suffering from an infection after an injury.
Why make Matt one of them when Vickie was jealous of him

Despite these, Touch of a Wolf had all the elements I hope for in a romantic suspense and they all worked together such that I turned off my ereader with a satisfied smile.
I enjoyed Jez Morrow's previous book, Lover and Commander and I liked Touch of a Wolf even more,.stars.

I checked out the author's backlist and was surprised to read the poor ratings for the earlier 'Wolf' books, Shadow of a Wolfhad a sitelinkpretty bad review by Adrienne Gallagher, which made me cringe and relieved I checked the book out before buying it.
The release after that one was Name of a Wolfand fared slightly better in that there were no stinging reviews, Both those books had me thinking Ms Morrow must have taken a crash course on M/M sex before writing Touch of a Wolf because the issues raised in the Shadow review, I did not detect in Touch of the Wolf.
There were some repetitive parts in the sex scenes and I agree those could have been dispensed with but other than that, I did not come across anything that would have resulted in grievous anal hurt, as the reviewer of Shadow mentioned.


Anyhow, if I'm now curious as to whether there are any reviews that compare this installment with the previous ones and I'm interested to see what Ms Morrow comes out with next.
It's nice to read a shifter story that's not all about fated mates which I think often kills the romantic tension, This ones a little different, There's a little bit of everything in this from drug use, police work amp criminals to clueless ex's on both guys part amp wolf packs, If you watch any reality TV you know at some point the announcer will offer a challenge with a twist amp then add another twist until we get down to extra, extra twisty.
That kept running through my head when reading this book, as the author kept adding twist amp turns, Did the author take on too much for the limited amount of pages this story had Probably, Maybe it coasted on the strength of its opening scene, This is no flawless story but it does offer good pacing a fun reading ride, Wow, this book was really great and was even better than I was expecting since it was kinda short, It had the perfect amount of paranormal touches and didn't go into tons of world building that you usually see in PNRs, It also had a sweet romance and a lot of hot sex, Unfortunately the cover just doesn't do it justice!! Wow, so this was like reading two different books, The first one I was really fine with and was all "four!" as I was coasting along, but it goes WTF during the last, and just completely threw me out.


First off, I picked this because I totally enjoyed sitelinkForce of Law by the same author, Yeah, it's a total wishfulfillment fantasy, and goes the route of SuperHEA in the end, and has the "I loved you at first sight" thing going on bleh, but Morrow's style is ridiculously readable I dug her sly humor that slid into the dialogue and character thoughts, and it was just a total "gleeful read" for me.
And I think it's hilarious that it's thein the sitelinkM/M Harlequin list, I'm so happy that someone made that list,

So, I was psyched to read another book by her, and this "shifter cop meets grad student" story sounded rad, And that first book in here was rad,

Matt the grad student, reeling from a breakup with his cheating boyfriend, is walking the dark Philly streets wanting to feel something, anything, to replace the bitterness that is consuming him, and that "feel anything" is a hot guy in a rumpled trench coat who takes one look at him and pulls him into an alley to have some fast, consensual Sexy Times.
Afterwards, Rumpled Trench Coat says "Can I see you again" And Matt, now reeling for a whole new reason, says, "Sure, " But Rumpled then exits stage alley left, and Matt is all, "He didn't even ask me for my number, so this is super going somewhere, "

But to his surprise, Rumpled shows up suddenly in Matt's apartment after breaking in, introduces himself as John Channing, a detective for the Philly PD, and requests if he can lie low at Matt's place for a little while.
Matt's excitement for more Sexy Times is dampened only slightly when he realizes that John wants to chill out there because he needs to detox from his drugtaking dirty cop act before a court case.


But Sexy Times wins out, and Matt realizes that he's wants to learn more about the mysterious Channing,

Especially when he finds out that Channing is a wolf shifter, Bazinga!

This first book had several directions, and it was a little hard to pin down, but I just went with the flow, Is it a thriller with the court case Will that ex of Matt's be a crazy stalker Will Matt flunk out of school How hard is it to become a cop if you're a wolf shifter Somewhere in the middle, I wondered if Morrow was doing a "sliceoflife," like this is what it's like to go to school, and come home to a detoxing wolf shifter detective, and have Sexy Times and be afraid of falling in love, and I was cool with that.
Sliceoflife could be fun, in that sitelinkMuscling Throughkind of way, although sometimes you can miss the conflict or drive that pushes the tension up,

But then bookbegins the shift to book, with a sudden road trip, but I'm still coasting fine here, Sudden road trips are cool in that sitelinkLast Stopkind of way, Sexy Times on the road!

And then they get to a communelike farm for other wolf shifters, I'm still fine here. The Alpha who runs it and the people running around seem interesting, I'm having a hard time pinning down how this story ties to the cops and drugs and court cases from the first book, but whatevs, Wolf Shifter Commune Sexy Times! Maybe here there will be a buildup of tension, suspense, or some kind of conflict that ties these two stories together,

But then it shifts to the WTFthrough the power of the internet, and his supersmarts, Matt starts making false IDs for the shifters, This false ID factory is just glossed over which really bugged me, Like, I know Matt is really smart even though he was "failing" in grad school, but how does he know how to make fake social security numbers And then all the wolf shifters love Matt because of his Mad Skillz, which felt a little Mary Sueish and random at this point in the story.
And then there's the angst about guys that Channing might have slept with in the past, or made into a werewolf in the past, and then the last major conflict is one of those that could have been solved if people just sit down and talk out their misconceptions.
. . sigh.

Part of my impetus to push forward through that lastwas just to see what would happen next because it just felt like total crazytown compared to that "first book" which I had been going through fine, even though I was confused sometimes about what exactly the book wanted to be.


So, it's hard to recommend this book, even though I did still like Morrow's writing style, Although sometimes her heavy use of "name verb, name verb" felt repetitive, her sly humor still often came through, especially in the first book, I really enjoyed the dialogue and backandforth between Matt and Channing during that part,

In the end, I kind of wished someone had reined in the scope, maybe whittled down some parts from Wolf Commune or chopped it out entirely and told a tighter love/suspense story of a wolf shifter detective who unwittingly falls for and has Sexy Times with a sweet anthropology student, and then the challenges that arise from that, and how they reach that Super HEA.


So, four for book, two for bookthree star read for me, But I still like Morrow's style, so will look forward to checking out more from her, .