Review: Dark Wolf Rising

by Rhyannon Byrd
Rating: 3/5

Eric Drake, a powerful Dark Wolf, has never trusted himself around human females—preferring to mate only within his pack. That is, until he encounters Chelsea Smart snooping around Silvercrest pack land in search of her missing sister. Secretly, Chelsea thinks Eric is the sexiest man she's ever seen, though she is wary of his potent Alpha energy. Then it's discovered that Chelsea's sister is being held by a pack of vicious Lycans, and Eric heroically leaps into action. Now, Chelsea will risk everything—her body and soul—to surrender to the passion that will mark her as Eric's woman for all eternity…if they survive.

Dark Wolf Rising is the fourth in the Bloodrunner’s series. The third book was published back in 2007. In the mean time Ms Byrd has published at least 10 books in the Primal Instinct series and it’s spin-off. So, was it worth the five year wait?

Not really. To put it in context it’s a good book and the series and characters are good to read about, but… I had assumed that this series was over, sure there were plot threads and characters left hanging at the end of Last Wolf Watching but even after discovering this series sometime in late 2010/early 2011 I had waiting fatigue.

The story picks up three months or so after the events of Last Wolf Standing and if it’s been awhile since you read the first three I’d re-read them. I didn’t but it hadn’t been so long for me and my hazy recollections were enough to get by.

Eric Drake, a dark wolf, is liaising between the Bloodrunners and the Silverback Pack to help protect them from intruders as they struggle to recover from Eric’s father’s actions in the “Last Wolf” trilogy of the series. Chelsea Smart is one of the intrusions onto pack land that Eric is called into fix.

Chelsea is looking for her sister and has tracked her to the nearby town. She is in the private parklands for reasons unknown but it’s implied that she needs to save money and intends to campout.

My feelings on Eric and Chelsea are mixed and this is the reason I say that five years was too long. Eric is pretty straight forward, a really hot alpha guy. Chelsea is weird. She’s a professor of Women’s Studies and kind of a man hater, and she admits this. The reason I don’t know how to feel about Chelsea and thus Eric and Chelsea is that well the book takes my side.

Chelsea deliberately tries to find reasons not to trust men, and the other characters around her call her on this bullshit. Especially since she’s had one male in her life who didn’t deserve trust. To be fair it was her father. She refuses to have a relationship with Eric because she doesn’t want to be like her emotionally battered mother, without any other part of her rationally saying that maybe healthy relationships wouldn’t be like that. Unfortunately it felt to me that the book was implying that Chelsea is being feminist to this and I dislike the implication that feminism = man-hater.

Aside from that issue I did like that Chelsea was a morally complex character and that when she stuffed up she apologised instead of making Eric be the bad guy. I also commend Ms Byrd for doing this in the restricted size available to a category novel. Eric was also interesting the way he was so conflicted over Chelsea.

The one thing I’d criticise other than Chelsea is there was a lack of information on what exactly a Dark Wolf is other than scary which mean the part at the end about a Dark Wolf mating was well… Deus ex Machina-ish.

My verdict is that this is a solid entry in the Bloodrunner’s series hampered by the lead time between it and the previous. Definitely pick it up and read. Looking forward to book 5, Dark Wolf Running.

**I received this book as an ARC from Harlequin Nocture via Netgalley**

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