Guest review: Last Wolf Standing by Rhyannon Byrd

Posted by Shannon C. on March 5th, 2008 filed in Alecia's reviews, C reviews, book reviews, guest post

So the other day my friend, the blogless Alecia, told me she bought a book at Walmart for a quick light read. She read me the blurb and I said to myself, “Hey, we should both read this book so we can talk about it on the blog.” Actually, we tried to get my blogging partner, Jaliya, in on the fun, but something shiny distracted her. Which probably explains a lot about why there is only one post from Jaliya, despite her being, y’know, my blogging partner.

Anyway, here, for your amusement, is Alecia’s take on this particular book. My review of this book has been submitted to Sybil over at TGBTU, and I’ll let you know if she decides to publish it.

Anyway, on with Alecia’s review.

Title: Last Wolf Standing
Author: Rhyannon Byrd
Genre: Paranormal romance
Grade: C-

Synopsis:

Five seconds ago, Mason Dillinger would
have sworn that it could never happen . . .

That a woman who was his perfect match
even existed. And that he’d find her in a
bustling café. Yet just the scent of sweet,
mortal Torrance Watson ignited a driving,
explosive need to claim her that he knew
his Pack would never sanction. . . . Worse,
the rogue werewolf he’d been hunting had
sensed that attraction and made Torry his
prey. Forced to safeguard her from this
ruthless assassin who already posed a
threat to his Pack, Mason now faced the
ultimate challenge. Does he have the
courage to cross the line by sealing the
blood bond that will make Torry his
alone—a disloyalty few of his kind ever
survived—or live an eternity without love?

Alecia’s Thoughts: Though possibly not the most original piece of romantic fiction I’ve

read in the past few months, Last Wolf Standing did have some good

points.

1.  Vast quantities of muscular, half naked men.

2.  Werewolves, my current favorite paranormal creature.

3.  Shades of Cannibalism.

Set…I’m really not sure where, now that I think about it.  Mountains

somewhere.  Was it Colorado?  Last Wolf Standing chronicles the

romance of Torrance and shitican’trememberhisname.  They meet, because

what’shisfuck can’t find a way to politely introduce himself, and so

trips the woman he has just identified as his life-mate.

We learn about a society of half-wolves called Bloodrunners, who track

down and kill canabalstic werewolves.  Actually, Lycans who kill and

eat humans.  Anyway, the consumption of human flesh (my favorite

taboo) makes the book readable, just to see if it squicks out the man

characters.  We also learn that the only sure way to kill a lycan is

to break his neck and sever the spinal chord.

After being attacked several times, Torrance is whisked away by

whoeverheis to his cabin home deep in the mountains

of….whereeverthefuckweare.  They are, of course, attacked before

they reach the mountain hide away.  Ass kicking ensues.  And they

bring home a pet.  His name is Elliot.  (See, I did remember some of

the character’s names.)

After a couple of chapters of Torrance fighting with what’shiscock, we

find out that she wants twoo luff and shithead is afraid to fall in

love because his brother killed himself over his own dead mate.  How

sad.

After some more sap, some B minus sex, and meeting shithead’s folks,

there’s another big fight that involves a lot of blood and guts, and

startling revelations on behalf of…several of the characters, the

book ends happily ever after and hinting heavily that we’ll be hearing

from another character, Jeremy..I think..in an addition that will be

available in April.

All in all, not a bad book, despite the fact I cannot remember the Hero’s name.

Shannon’s random commentary: I hated the names in this book. Mason and Torrance? Well, at least they weren’t called Hawk and Raven, but still. I know I’m the one with the freaking inner feminist bitch, but Torrance is not a name that inspires thoughts of femininity.