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A review by authorrubyduvall
A Certain Wolfish Charm by Lydia Dare
2.0
DNF at 65%.
This book needs some work. Another round or two of developmental edits, for starters. An intriguing premise, but the execution was abysmal. Overall, the writing is artless. The plot careens from one scene to the next. It's almost like the author made a ton of notes for her first draft's outline (if she made any notes at all), and instead of condensing things or tossing out ideas that were a little too tiresome or really diving deep into character relationships/arcs/motivations--instead of doing any of that, she just put it into some semblance of an order and then wrote it. "A Certain Wolfish Charm" read to me like a serial fanfic: lots of horniness at all times with a very seat-of-the-pants sort of plot.
I also didn't like certain aspects of the relationship between the hero and heroine. He's pretty much an "alphahole" half the time, and she never seems to have a normal reaction to most things. Oh she does cluck her disapproval a bit, but she lets other characters bowl her over constantly. Many times, she lets something drop that a normal person really would not just let go. And as a reader, I kept thinking to myself, "Man, if she were normal, she'd be out of there in two minutes and never go back, and then the book would be over." But of course the book can't be over, so the heroine ends up simply wringing her hands over things like "the duke and my nephew keep getting into violent altercations in private."
I really wanted to like this book--regency werewolves, how fun!--but this author's writing just isn't for me.
This book needs some work. Another round or two of developmental edits, for starters. An intriguing premise, but the execution was abysmal. Overall, the writing is artless. The plot careens from one scene to the next. It's almost like the author made a ton of notes for her first draft's outline (if she made any notes at all), and instead of condensing things or tossing out ideas that were a little too tiresome or really diving deep into character relationships/arcs/motivations--instead of doing any of that, she just put it into some semblance of an order and then wrote it. "A Certain Wolfish Charm" read to me like a serial fanfic: lots of horniness at all times with a very seat-of-the-pants sort of plot.
I also didn't like certain aspects of the relationship between the hero and heroine. He's pretty much an "alphahole" half the time, and she never seems to have a normal reaction to most things. Oh she does cluck her disapproval a bit, but she lets other characters bowl her over constantly. Many times, she lets something drop that a normal person really would not just let go. And as a reader, I kept thinking to myself, "Man, if she were normal, she'd be out of there in two minutes and never go back, and then the book would be over." But of course the book can't be over, so the heroine ends up simply wringing her hands over things like "the duke and my nephew keep getting into violent altercations in private."
I really wanted to like this book--regency werewolves, how fun!--but this author's writing just isn't for me.