Ami's Hoard

First of all, a little reader's advisory ... Lone Wolf is the fourth book in a Bluewater Bay universe -- while most of this novels are stated to be 'stand alone' however, I also thought that this was the least 'stand-alone' from the previous three. There are too many references to characters of Wolf Landing, including the characters first introduced in the first book from this universe, Starstruck. I believe anyone who only purchase this book because of the Voinov and Witt combo but have not yet read the previous books (or at least Starstruck) would likely be confused with the names like Gabriel, Max, Levi, or Carter.

Now, onto the story itself.

I had to admit that the whole idea of an author reading fan-fiction based on his own works was not exactly out of this world. I am actually pretty sure, with the whole spotlight on fan-fiction these days, including the P2P fan--fiction after the likes of 50 Shades of Grey has brought the world of fanfiction more to the surface. It's no longer flying under the radar. Heck, I am even sure that some TV writers probably look at fan-fictions for ideas (Supernatural everyone?).

Having said that, I didn't exactly buy the premise ... I mean, of course I'm not an author myself, but for Hunter to easily welcome Kevin and his story to be part of the Wolf Landing world, including hooking Kevin up to his agent and to sweep him away to the world of publishing and fans and conventions, is something that is just "too good to be true". While as a reader I can also suspend my disbelief, but at the same time, it also made me unable to fully embrace it. Not to mention the whole discussions about fandoms and fan-fictions and all the pros and cons -- during Kevin's critique group scene -- felt a little too close too home, it made me all fidgety and uneasy. What can I say, I was reading this after the whole fiasco regarding fan-fiction inclusion on Goodreads database ... you can understand my discomfort, yes?

Oh, and I'm also not a huge fan of stories where the romance seems to be a bit unbalanced -- somehow, that is what I felt from this story. Kevin is a HUGE fan of Hunter and his books. All the time Kevin is crushing over Hunter gets to the point where I couldn't help to wonder whether Kevin actually likes Hunter for the man, or the author that he has been idolizing? Is his feeling real or just an extension of his crush? Will it get anywhere after they actually working together? And I was questioning this because the last part where Hunter edits their works seems to create another issue for the two of them. The whole "I love you" seems to be too early for the two of them, considering that I actually sense that their future won't be too smooth with their new partnership.

Hunter also is a bit different than what I imagined him to be. Somehow, I imagined him for being a hermit and difficult; so this version of Hunter didn't match my version of Hunter (that I concluded when reading Starstruck) and somehow it threw me off a balance.

Other than that, I thought the writing was very accessible. I never read the works from this duo -- mainly because the books they released so far are not my cup of tea -- but since both has been writing for sometimes, I think the partnership works. Just don't ask me about the sex scenes though, I mainly skimmed it *shrugs*. So yes, overall, it is a nice reading but not exactly my favorite from the universe.



The copy of this book is provided by the publisher via Netgalley for an exchange of fair and honest review. No high rating is required for any copy received.