Duty Of The Winter Wolf (Guardian Of The Winter Stone #1)
by Ariana Jade
My Rating: 3 stars
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Age Category: New Adult
Type of romance: f/f
Blurb:
After twenty years of being an outcast in her Wolf Clan, Akira finds herself chosen for the greatest honour possible. She’s to become a Guardian Wolf. Suspiciously, a sacred relic needed to complete the ritual has gone missing.Suddenly it’s her duty to retrieve it. Alone.
When she sets off on her journey across continent, she couldn’t be less prepared for the perilous and traitorous nature of her quest. An odd group of lone wolves quickly take her in and one of them even claims to be her fated mate, but can they really be trusted?
Akira will have to find out the hard way.
****
Duty Of The Winter Wolf is the first book in the Guardian Of The Winter Stone series and is an epic fantasy with romance, wolf shifters, and fated mates. It has themes of found family, redemption, and a romantic plot where Akira must choose between her enchanting true mate and a growly alpha wolf.
My Review
I received a copy from the author and voluntarily reviewed it.
I was curious about this series as I’ve enjoyed other series by this author and decided to give it a try. The prequel novella didn’t work for me, but I was hopeful I would enjoy this book more, which luckily turned out to be the case. Sadly Duty of the Winter Wolf while having some interesting part didn’t fully hook me and I am unsure whether I want to continue the series. I liked the adventurous vibe with the quest and there are some interesting world building elements.
Duty of the Winter Wolf follows the story of Akira, most of her family hates her and she isn’t treated well due to having a wolf soul in her. The only thing they think she’s good for is becoming the Guardian of the Winter Stone and when she’s chosen for this role her life changes. The winter stone is stolen and she has to retrieve it. So she leaves her home town to go on the quest for the winter stone. I felt really bad for Akira her life was pretty horrible and now she has to go on an important quest she doesn’t understand and with limited rations and money to help her along. It was just sad to read about.
A lot of this book relies on the fact that Akira knows very little of what’s going. She doesn’t know what the winter stone is, what it means to have a wolf soul, who stole the winter stone and were it is or much of anything else except what life is like in the village she grew up in and what she has been told there. During her journey there are some reveals and things she learns. There are some interesting ones, but I just was feeling a bit frustrated with how little she knew and how hard it was to get a feel for the world as Akira doesn’t know much about it. And a lot of these reveals rely on the fact Akira doesn’t know a lot or not the right things.
Then there are two people she meets, Ashleigh claims to be her fated mate and Akira does feel a stirring in her wolf soul she never felt before. Then there is her twin aspen and Akira decides to travel with them. All three are likable enough characters, but I never fully warmer up to them yet. I wanted to know more about them and they’re all keeping secrets of each other too.
To summarize: This book had an interesting set up and concepts, but something about it kept me from feeling fully invested. Akira doesn’t know a lot about her quest or what’s going on in the world and there are a lot of reveals based around this, but to me it just felt a bit frustrating as it was hard to get a feel for the world and what it was like due to this. The characters are all nice enough, but I didn’t fully warm up to them yet as there is so much I still don’t know about them. Things might improve in future books, but I am not yet sure if I want to continue the series.
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