Book Review: Hunting Ground by Patricia Briggs (Alpha & Omega #2)

Anna Latham didn’t know how complicated life could be until she became a werewolf. And until she was mated to Charles Cornick, the son — and enforcer — of Bran, the leader of the North American werewolves, she didn’t know how dangerous it could be either...

Anna and Charles have just been enlisted to attend a summit to present Bran’s controversial proposition: that the wolves should finally reveal themselves to humans. But the most feared Alpha in Europe is dead set against the plan — and it seems like someone else might be too. When Anna is attacked by vampires using pack magic, the kind of power only werewolves should be able to draw on, Charles and Anna must combine their talents to hunt down whoever is behind it all — or risk losing everything...

My Review: 

The European Wolves are coming to Seattle for a summit and on the agenda is Bran's plan to out the werewolves to the general population, which some are deeply opposed to. Charles doesn't think it is safe for Bran to go and agrees he will take Anna. However tensions are high with the impartial judge being an ex lover of Charles, a psycho French wolf at the summit is rumoured to be killing humans and a group of vampires attacking Anna using Pack magic. Who is behind the attacks and why?

The book gets off to a slow start again and focuses on the shaky relationship between Anna and Charles. I find them both interesting as characters but I do want to just skip this angst and have them as a functioning couple. It does get boring to hear for the hundredth time how off balance Charles feels or how inadequate Anna feels. Do we need more awkward misunderstandings? Just get on with it already! It is for this repetitive reason that again I have to knock a star off the rating for the book. Both in the series so far have been slow starting and repetitive on the angst. I get that it's important to show the difficulties of them adjusting to be a couple and it is interesting but I just want them to get past it. However, both are excellent reads when the real story gets going!

We meet a few interesting new characters in Angus, the hosting Pack leader, his second Tom and Tom's girlfriend Moira who is a blind witch. (You can read how Tom met Moira in the Shifting Shadows anthology). There is also the eccentric British wolf Arthur who claims to be King Arthur with the real Excalibur, and his human mate Sunny, who is lovely. The impartial judge for the events is Dana who is fae and there is Jean the mad wolf. Anna also gets the chance to meet a fellow Omega wolf who is just as confused about it all as she is. I found the range of characters interesting and I liked their various interactions. I hope we see more of Angus and his Pack in later books especially Tom and Moira.

I also liked the plot. When I heard 'summit' I thought of boring lectures on werewolf politics but that doesn't happen. We do hear relevant bits of info from the summit but it is mostly about the characters and their behaviour rather than in depth politics so I was pleased by how that is written. Anna doesn't actually see much of the summit as her nervous attendance there unsettles and distracts the others so she is banished to go shopping with Tom and Moira! However it is on one of her shopping trips that the three of them are attacked by a group of vampires who seem to be using some kind of Pack magic in trying to kidnap her. It is an incident that sends Charles into a rage. Anna just wants to get through the rest of the summit alive and get home to Montana.

However next up is the major event of the summit which is the hunt. Everyone in wolf form races each other through a game zone to find the treasure bagsand it gets very competitive and dangerous. During the hunt, a murdered body is found, a fight breaks out and Charles ends up facing some serious charges that could cost him his life. I loved the hunt. It was exciting and deadly and the way things played out in the aftermath were very dramatic and tense. This was where Ms Briggs really shows her writing skills and Anna steps up to the mark and finds her strength. The whole second half of the book features some really good twists and action.

Can I just say again how wonderful Brother Wolf is? I love that when Charles retreats into himself, we get the separate and calming personality of Brother Wolf taking over.

Read December 2016.

Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!  

Please note that I do not allow third party companies like DISQUS access to my blog or social media so if you use that, I can't follow you or comment on your blog or posts. Sorry! This is why I won't give DISQUS my details, for those who have asked:

"Authorize DISQUS to use your account? Disqus is a service and tool for web comments and discussions. This application will be able to:
*Read Tweets from your timeline.
*See who you follow, and follow new people. 

*Update your profile.
*Post Tweets for you." Um, NO WAY, NOPE, NEVER GONNA HAPPEN!

So time for another topic. This week is Ten Books I Wish Had (More/Less) X In Them. I'm struggling to think of something here.

Ten things I want to see more books about! (If you have recs of any of these categories, tell me in the comments section!)

1) Disabled people in the zombie apocalypse
In zombie books you see and hear them coming and then you run or hide upstairs and keep quiet. Think about the challenges to an MC who is in a wheelchair, or who is blind or deaf or has some other physical condition that would create issues in the zombie apocalypse. I love the idea of this but haven't really seen any like that yet.

NB if you want to see sci-fy/fantasy books with disability characters check out this list http://blog.kristenburns.com/books-with-disability/  put together by Kristen at http://blog.kristenburns.com/

2) Rampaging dinosaurs
I love things like Jurassic World and books with dinosaurs eating people in mad gameshows or on deserted islands. But I want more! Yes to dinosaurs running through cities eating people! Yes to twisted billionaires creating Survivor style games with traps and dinosaurs! Yes to dino blood and gore!

3) Bigfoot 
I'm seeing friendly Bigfoot books for younger kids or Bigfoot thrillers and short stories...but what I want are more full length novels about Bigfoot stalking people through the woods and ripping off their limbs and using their spines as dental floss! Bigfoot in the city! Bigfoot at holiday resorts! More Yeti mountain disaster books!

4) Fast paced monster horror 
I'm seeing a lot of good sounding plots about mutant monsters but I'm constantly disappointed at how slow they are with the plot! I want breakneck speed with lots of monster attacks like Viktor Zarkov not a long intro to every character in town and info dumps about their houses and jobs and past loves...I just want a brief intro and then monsters! 

5) Sharks
Now who doesn't love a good old shark attack book! Don't give me slow plots with romance sideshows like Jaws, I want fast paced gory action with lots of death and near miss tension! Lets see more crazy shark stories, people trapped on sinking boats, flooded underwater facilities, experimental sharks on land...ooh lovely!

6) British Prepper and zombie fiction
I love prepper and apocalypse fiction and most of the good stuff is set in the US. I want to see more serious, scary books set in the UK as most seem to be dumb Shaun of the Dead so called funny books. Be nice to see more set in Scotland-I recently read a great EMP book set in Scotland but can't get it or any follow up books by the author in paperback anywhere!

7) Military zombies 
Love the zombie books by ZA Recht, Nicholas Sansbury Smith, Michael Stephen Fuchs and Stephen Knight where we follow soldiers into cities and labs, on scavenging and rescue missions while knee deep in zombies. I love the fast paced excitement and tension of these books and really want to read more like them! Recs anyone?

8) Tudors  
There are great Tudor authors out there but you always want more don't you! I like to see books based around real people not made up characters at Court and would love to see more on Mary Boleyn, Jane Rochford, Mary Howard, Anne Seymour, the Grey sisters...and the lesser covered Queens. It's fun to find the really good ones!

9) Mountain disasters   
I've read lots of books about the 1996 Everest disaster and disasters on a few other mountains but nothing about the more recent disasters on the same mountains or the Base Camp avalanche. I'd like to see a few more books about more recent expeditions.

10) Urban Legends 
I want to see more fast paced plots about the less common but very cool urban beasts like Chupacabra, Wendigo, Aswangs, Spring Heeled Jack...scary crap like that. Lets see more of these bad boys in urban populations!

Book Review: Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs (Alpha & Omega #1)

Anna never knew werewolves existed until the night she survived a violent attack...and became one herself. After three years at the bottom of the pack, she'd learned to keep her head down and never, ever trust dominant males. But Anna is that rarest kind of werewolf: an Omega. And one of the most powerful werewolves in the country will recognize her value as a pack member - and as his mate.

My Review: 
If you haven't read the prequel story 'Alpha & Omega' I suggest you read that first or you are going to be a bit lost at the start of this novel! You can get it in the anthologies 'On the Prowl' or 'Shifting Shadows'.

Anna is afraid that her Pack will want revenge on her for what happened to their Alpha so she accepts the chance of a new life with the Montana Pack run by Bran, father of her rescuer Charles. Anna knows little about werewolves and is finding the learning process difficult, especially dealing with being an Omega wolf and a potential mate to Charles. However personal problems have to be put aside when a rogue werewolf is attacking people and must be tracked down and stopped. It sounds like a simple enough task but it is going to be a lot more dangerous than they think.

Anna is very fragile and damaged by her experiences with her brutal pack and is finding it hard to adjust to life in a new Pack. She feels as if she is always saying or doing the wrong thing and that she isn't really fit to be with Charles, and with Charles being unable and unused to communicating his thoughts and feelings, every interaction between them seems to lead to confusion and misunderstanding. In a way it was logical to have two loners struggling to connect with each other on any level but at times you did want to smack their heads together in frustration and scream at them to just tell each other what they are thinking! I liked Anna as a character but dealing with her emotions and hang ups do get the book off to a bit of a slower start than I like in my urban fantasy. I did however, find the inter-relationships and characters interesting enough to want to keep reading, especially exploring the Omega gift that Anna can use to soothe Pack members-and that she can disobey orders from more senior members.

I liked meeting the Montana Pack that we see the odd time in the Mercy Thompson series, which I love. Asil the suicidal wolf fascinates me. He is very dangerous and when he loses himself people die, so he has come to Bran's Pack looking for a peaceful end to his life, though Bran is not ready to get rid of him yet. Anna's Omega gift brings Asil a bit of relief from his emotional pain and he likes her. Sage is determined to be a new friend for Anna and I liked her immediately so I hope we see plenty of her in the books. Samuel is going to leave Montana to live with Mercy and try to find some meaning in his life again, a story that continues in the other series. I also liked seeing Bran having difficulty in controlling elements of his Pack who are unhappy about him killing a popular but out of control Pack member recently, as well as his problems with bitch from hell wife Leah. It was fun to see new werewolves and how different this Pack is from Adam's in the other series.

The main plot for this book is that a rogue wolf is attacking hikers near Bran's territory and he has to find out who is doing it and why. He is considering bringing werewolves out and admitting they exist, an idea that not every Pack supports. Are the attacks being carried out to stop Bran's plans or are they just an out of control werewolf? With the latest victim being a local Forest Ranger, Bran decides to send Charles and Anna to investigate, giving them some time to sort their relationship out away from the Pack. This is where the book starts to really find its feet and I started to get into the story.

The second half of the book has Anna and Charles camping out in the wild and trying to track the rogue werewolf while it is tracking them. However, there is more than one enemy out in the woods to fear, a powerful old enemy of Asil is determined to find him and is luring the Pack out to get to him. Asil is having nightmares about his past and fears that it means his enemy is near-can he convince Bran of the danger and warn Anna and Charles in time? This forest hunt is quite tense and exciting, and I really enjoyed the story as it developed.

Comparing this series to the Mercy Thompson series is difficult because they are certainly different. Mercy is part of a big group of supernaturals all living in an area and allying with or fighting other similar creatures and there is a bit more action in it because of that. This series is about a self contained Pack out in the middle of nowhere, with more emphasis on Pack politics and their relationships, and Charles doing the job as Pack enforcer, sending him around the country to deal with werewolf related issues. While both Packs are in the same world, each have their good points and provide totally different stories.

So what is good about this series? I love Anna and Charles as individuals and as a couple. I love the relationship that Charles has with his wolf self who is like a seperate entity that Anna can speak to. I just LOVE Brother Wolf! I love the character of Asil and the whole plot of having a tired wolf who is feeling suicidal yet still enjoys stirring things up. I enjoy seeing the Montana Pack and the issues that they have, with Bran and Charles being responsible for policing every Pack around them and solving their problems. Getting to see the enforcer wolf going out on different missions in this series is going to be a whole new side to the werewolves that I think I'm going to enjoy. The whole Omega wolf thing is also interesting. Plenty to enjoy!

I would recommend that you start with the Mercy Thompson series first to get the background to both packs and then grab this series and enjoy. But remember, read the prequel to this book before you start this series!  
Read December 2016.

Chuckles Retro Reads: Alpha & Omega by Patricia Briggs (Alpha & Omega #0.5)

The werewolf Anna finds a new sense of self when the son of the werewolf king comes to town to quell unrest in the Chicago pack- and inspires a power in Anna that she's never felt before.

My Review: 
This short story 'Alpha & Omega' was previously published in the anthology On the Prowl, but has recently been published in an anthology of Patricia Briggs work-'Shifting Shadows'. It is vital that you read this prequel story before you go on to the Alpha and Omega novels or you are going to be totally lost as to what is happening!

I picked up the On the Prowl anthology years ago to read the Alpha and Omega short story. I had just got into the Mercy Thompson series and decided to read the start of the spin off series. I didn't like it as I didn't know the characters and I lost interest in the entire series. This week, many years later, I decided to give it a second chance. The reason? Well, having read all the Mercy books so far, I now know a lot more about Bran's pack and figured that I'd now be more interested in reading about them. Last night I re-read this short story-and loved it! So it WAS a good idea to give it a second try!

Anna sees a report in a newspaper about a missing boy-who she saw locked in a cage at the house of Leo, her abusive Alpha. Despire her fear of Bran, the ruler of the werewolves, she reports it to him. He is sending his son Charles, his executioner, to investigate a few things that are wrong with Leo's pack and asks Anna to meet Charles so he can offer his protection to her. There is an attraction between them as Charles discovers his wolf wants her as a mate and she is a rare Omega werewolf, a calming influence on other werewolves.

There was a lot to like in this story. Anna is abused, damaged, knows little about the werewolf rules, changed against her will and raped by various pack members. Her life has been miserable and she finally sees that there may be a better life on offer away from Leo if Charles wants her as a mate. Anna is a sad character that you can instantly feel sorry for, and you want those that hurt her to be punished. As an MC she is able to carry the story well.

Charles is very much an Alpha, with dominant personality and striking looks. I already found him intriguing from what he hear about him in the other series. Perhaps I carry the same werewolf gene as Charles because, like him, I get irritated by people in crowded places! I hate shopping and anywhere with rude people pushing into me and being loud! So I had sympathy for Charles from the very start. I like the way he is determined to put the bad wolves in their place and protect Anna from them.

So, Charles has to find out why all the females in the pack except Leo's mate are dead-except Anna and why a lot of older wolves in the pack are also gone. I'm not going to spoil the plot by saying what he uncovers but it was a good plot twist, and it explains the brutal treatment of Anna. It was a twist that had me changing my mind about a few of the characters in the book.

Enjoyable read and I will certainly be going on to read the first full book in the series to see what happens next. (I have now completed the series and will be posting the reviews this week)

Film Review: The Girl With All The Gifts

A strange fungal disease is turning humans into zombie like creatures and Dr Caldwell's experiments on an army base could be the last chance at a cure. A group of children who are able to learn and interact despite their hunger are the key but their teacher Miss Justineau, who has been testing their intelligence, decides that she can't allow her favourite, Melanie, to be disected. With the base being overrun, they and Sgt Parks have to work together to survive and see if a cure is still possible while Melanie starts to discover who she really is.

Starring: Gemma Arterton, Glenn Close, Paddy Considine and Sennia Nanua.

My Review:
I very much enjoyed the book and I bought the dvd when I heard it had been released but I found myself a little underwhelmed by it to be honest. It does stick pretty faithfully to the book for the most part, which no doubt is due to Mike Carey writing the screenplay based on his book. It's not a bad film but I just expected more from it.

What I liked best was Glenn Close as Dr Caldwell. I thought this was a good piece of casting and you can understand her motivations in wanting to save the world at the expense of a few half zombie kids. In the same way, you feel sorry for the kids who don't really know what they are or that they will soon die. Sennia Nanua does a good job in portraying the know-all Melanie and her devotion to her teacher but I just didn't like Melanie as a character the way I did in the book and I'm not sure why. I certainly don't blame it on the casting as she took the part well, but I found myself more on Dr Caldwell's side in the film which is kind of disturbing.

The problems? First I wasn't convinced by the hungries. This was obviously shot on a very cheap budget so the people never really looked like zombies, just face pulling crazy people running around the place. I never really felt the menace from them, the way you do in classic zombie films. When the group were moving through the still zombies, again it just lacked something. Even the one real action scene at the army base was confused and not as dramatic as I felt it could be. The scenes with Melanie subduing her fellow children just didn't work for me in any way. It just wasn't convincing me. Overall I found it a bit too slow and lacking what I was hoping for in terms of tension and drama.

Gah, I hate looking forward to something and then not liking it as much as I wanted to. It is a decent enough film and was fine to watch but not one I would watch again.