Prince of Wolves

Prince of Wolves

by Quin Loftis

1 out of 5


Synopsis
Jacque Pierce was just an ordinary 17-year-old girl getting ready to start her senior year in high school in Coldspring, Texas. When a mysterious foreign exchange student from Romania moves in across the street, Jacque and her two best friends, Sally and Jen, don't realize the last two weeks of their summer are going to get a lot more interesting. 

From the moment Jacque sets eyes on Fane she feels an instant connection, a pull like a moth to a flame. Little does she know that the flame she is drawn to is actually a Canis lupis, werewolf, and she just happens to be his mate; the other half of his soul. 

The problem is Fane is not the only wolf in Coldspring, Texas.

Just as Fane and Jacque are getting to know each other, another wolf steps out to try and claim Jacque as his mate. Fane will now have to fight for the right to complete the mating bond, something that is his right by birth but is being denied him by a crazed Alpha. Will the love Fane has for Jacque be enough to give him the strength to defeat his enemy, will Jacque accept that she is Fane's mate and complete the bond between them?


Review
I was immediately sold on this book by the promise of werewolves and thousands of high ratings...

Never judge a book by other people's opinions.
Which obviously means you should ignore what I have to say and go read it for yourself.

The only thing that allowed me to finish this book were the glimmers of humour.  Quinn Loftis has a real skill at snarky, quick-fire humour.  In fact, I wished repeatedly that she had purposefully written a comedy, it would have worked perfectly as something tongue-in-cheek.

Instead, it limped along with everything I find wrong in YA.
Insta-love.  Of course Jacque is in love with Fane, he is like, so totally hot.  He just smoulders and oozes sex-appeal, that her friends almost hyperventilate when he is around.  Oh yeah, and who doesn't want to be able to read each other's thoughts.
Fane is a wolf, so his animal instinct tells him that he has met his mate and one true love, even before they meet (yeah, he notices her watching out of her window when he arrives).  Fane then goes on to be smothering and jealous and possessive over what is his; but that's really adorable, right?
And of course, Fane is the perfect boyfriend; the perfect kisser; the ideal everything - even though he's never had a girlfriend, or any interest in any girl until he met Jacque.

Fane.  He deserves a paragraph to himself.  He is a prince.  He is actual Romanian royalty (albeit of the wolf kind).  Why the hell does he speak like an American teenage girl?  Sure, he is in Coldspring to improve his English; but there is nothing in the way he speaks, the way he thinks, that confirms he is anything other than an "Oh My Gawd" teenager.
Because I was already annoyed by this, I was irritated further by the language.  There was repeated Romanian phrases (I would be disappointed if there weren't), but Loftis' choice to constantly have translations in brackets next to the words broke the flow.

Repetitions.
Repetitions... It is a common irritant when books are written from two points of view, that there is bound to be a little overlap when switching between the narrating character.  This book repeats things twice, going over the whole same section of storyline first with Jacque, and then with Fane.
Then Loftis goes one step further, and repeats everything all over again when Jacque has to fill in her best friends Sally and Jen.

Oh yes, I have just remembered the swear word.  Oh dear f@#!ing hell the swear words!  Ok, I understand if you want to make your story safe for younger readers; bravo for wanting to keep it clean.  But keep it completely clean by removing swear words, or replacing them with a soft alternative.  Don't give cheap and nasty censoring.

And finally we get to the story itself.
It feels like a girl's fantasy.  Step one - hot hero, and let's make him royalty.  Step two - he so totally falls in love with the "could be anyone" girl.  Step three - Oh sh!t, we don't have any angst - let's throw in an opposing wolf that wants to claim Jacque, even though we've never heard of him or his pack.

So... the rest of the series is not on my to-read list.

Goodreads link
Amazon.co.uk