REVIEW: Master of Wolves by Angela Knight
Dear Ms. Knight:
I am sorry to say that I think we are no longer compatible. It’s not you, it’s me. Your mageverse alternative urban fantasy seems less like a cohesive attempt at world building and more like a magentic word set gone horribly wrong. So many things in your world make no sense. So Merlin and his lover make Arthur and his men into vampires but the women turn into witches. So why were there female vampires created by the Black Grails? Why do the good women have to be witches? Can there be good female vampires? What does the dragon lord have to do with the King of the Sidhe. How were the werewolves created and who kills the werewolves if they go rogue? Why do you only have to protect the world from Arthur possibly going rogue and not the werewolves? Why does every possible magical being in your alternative world have to show up in this book. See, alot of questions. But again, it is totally me not getting your story, not you failing to deliver.
And it is me again that is throwing up a little in my mouth at the arousal scenes featuring Faith and Jim in their DireWolf states, not you writing sex scenes featuring borderline beastiality, no matter Faith’s protestations that she is not into that. It’s me who laughed a little hysterically at the motivation of the villian to overtake the world because she was abused by her grandpa, not you using a hackneyed plot device to provide an excuse for the villian to act badly. It is acceptable for the villian to act badly without any excuse at all. That’s what makes villians truly scary – when we can’t explain why they are horrible. Not knowing what makes the villian tick allows our imaginations to believe that our secretive next door neighbor could possibly be doing bad things in his basement.
So, the plot of the story? Faith is a policewoman who has been burned by an unfaithful husband. Jim’s best friend’s heart was eaten out in Faith’s jurisdiction. Jim comes to investigate and poses as a policedog. He is matched with Faith. The ENTIRE police department is under the spell of a vampire/witch who is trying to overtake the world. This part wasn’t bad (despite the whole police department thing and no one figuring it out – Faith is really unobservant for a cop). Celestine’s manuevering was quite clever and I liked her henchman, Kevin Reynolds, a policeman made into a rogue werewolf. Jim is ordered to eliminate the rogue werewolf, eliminate Celestine, and go home. It was when all the Sidhe, mentions of Merlin, glimpses of Avalon started showing up that I lost my ability to suspend belief and just goggled wide eyed at the amount of fantasy that was thrown against the paper to see what stuck.
I think that if you could write less of a fantastical tale and one more grounded in believable fantasy, I would be interested in renewing a relationship with you, but unfortunately, it appears that you and the Mageverse are going to be an item for some time. Like I said, though, it’s not you, it’s me. D for you.
Best regards,
Jane
I’ve read 3 of her MM paperbacks, one was enough. It was entertaining and yet the other two were much of the same and seemed like a waste of time. I’ve discovered that there are some paranormal writers you can’t glom one after another and ultimately turns me off the writer all together. Angela Knight fell into this category for me and after this review, she’ll stay there.
I’m with Tara Marie here. I really enjoyed AK’s old stories, but her books these days? Meh. A pity, really. I think her greatest strength lies with short story writing [which is incredibly difficult, according to some writers, romance or not], but I did read a couple of her recent short stories, which left a huge dent in my previously firm belief.