Midnight Wolf

Jennifer Ashley has created another fascinating shifter tale in her Shifters Unbound series. As usual with her books, her characters are strong and charismatic with fierce personalities that readers can’t help but become fascinated by as their stories unfold. Tamsin and Angus’s story starts off with lots of excitement and keeps an energetic and fast pace as their sizzling chemistry and rocky meeting keeps this couple on turbulent path full of smoldering passion, thrilling danger and shaky relationship. Enemies of the shifters keep this couple on the run during this fast paced and exciting story where anticipation and suspense continuously build, keeping the readers on the edge of their seat and glued to the pages during some exhilarating twists and turns that ensure that readers want to find out what will happen next. Jennifer Ashley’s Shifters Unbound series continuously astounds me with wonderful characters and a fascinating world. She brings it all to vibrant life and makes me feel as if I am a part of this world as I enjoy each and every couple’s story. I was so enthralled with Midnight Wolf that I ended up staying way past bedtime so that I could finish the book and find out if Tamsin and Angus got their happily ever after and just how everything worked out for them with the bad guys, of course now I am waiting impatiently for the next book, which I believe releases at the end of May.

MIDNIGHT WOLF is the eleventh full-length novel in Jennifer Ashley’s contemporary, adult SHIFTERS UNBOUND paranormal/ fantasy romance series. This is lupine shifter/tracker Angus Murray, and Tamsin Calloway’s story line. MIDNIGHT WOLF can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty but for cohesion and backstory I recommend reading the series in order as there is a continuing arc focusing on the impending war with the Fae. SOME BACKGROUND: Thousands of years in the past, the Fae created the shifters-a cross between beast and man-and in the ensuing time the Fae lost control and power over the battle creatures they had created for war. Approximately twenty years ago shifters were exposed to the human population. Out of fear, discrimination and specieism, the shifters were collared with Fae magic in the belief that it would control aggression; then they were forced into segregated communities known as Shiftertowns. There are several Shiftertowns located throughout America where shifters live in a relative but strained peace amongst their own kind. Told from dual third person perspectives (Tamsin and Angus) MIDNIGHT WOLF follows lupine shifter and tracker Angus Murray as he is forced by the Shifter Bureau to track an uncollared shifter of unknown origin. Enter Tamsin Calloway, a rogue, female shifter, and the woman with whom Angus will fall in love. What ensues is the building romance and relationship between Tamsin and Angus as our couple tries to stay one step ahead of the Shifter Bureau whose intent is to dissect and destroy our story line heroine. Angus Murray is a single father, working as a bouncer when threats against his family force our hero to go on the hunt. With his cub in custody Angus has no choice but to do the Bureau’s bidding, as he searches for the rogue female he knows nothing about. Tamsin Calloway has spent most of her life on the run. Collar-less, and without support of any kind, Tamsin finds herself on the Bureau’s most wanted list for a series of crimes but none more so than the information she keeps secreted in her mind. Meeting Angus Murray never felt so right or so wrong including the maternal feelings that arose when she met Angus’s motherless cub. The relationship between Angus and Tamsin is a forced friendship in order for our heroine to survive. Targeted by the Bureau, and thusly Angus Murray, Tamsin must succumb to her captor or find herself on the receiving end of imprisonment or worse. Falling in love was never on the agenda but a mate bond is claimed by Angus to protect the woman with whom he has fallen in love. The $ex scenes are passionate but limited, without the use of over the top, sexually graphic language and text. There is a very large ensemble cast of secondary and supporting characters including the return of Tiger and Carly, Ben, Zander and Rae, Dimitri and Jaycee, Dylan and Sean, as well as the introduction of bear shifter and carnival owner Dante, his mate Celene and their daughter Brina, and Angus’s son Ciaran. The requisite evil has many faces including several members of the Shifter Bureau. The world building continues to focus on the potential war between the shifter and the Fae, but follows the ongoing discrimination of shifters: the laws to collar and control, as well as the segregation and Shiftertowns meant to isolate those deemed different. MIDNIGHT WOLF is an exciting, detailed story line about trust and betrayal, family and friendship, fated mates and happily ever afters. The premise is thrilling and fascination; the characters are colorful, energetic and inspiring; the romance is intimate and animated. MIDNIGHT WOLF is a welcome addition to Jennifer Ashley’s Shifters Unbound- a cross-country journey as fated mates stay one step ahead of a potential take down and catastrophic danger to all involved.

I love how things seemed so random in this story, but knowing what happens in later books, is so connected! We met Angus is the previous book, and Tamsen bursts onto the scene here. There was so much I loved about their story, the deep family connections, their strong wills, how they care for those around them, and the chemistry between them that is scorching hot <3