Review: Way of the Wolf by Lindsay Buroker

Posted April 21, 2025 by Lola in Fantasy, Review / 0 Comments

Way of the Wolf (Magnetic Magic #1)
by Lindsay Buroker
narrated by Vivienne Leheny

My Rating: 3 stars

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: m/f

Blurb:
You can only escape your destiny for so long…

It’s been more than twenty years since tragedy prompted Luna Valens to walk away from her pack.

Scarred by her past, she’s done her best to lead a normal human life. Thanks to a potion that suppresses her magic, nobody around her has a clue that she’s a werewolf.

Until…

Her potion supplier disappears, her family reestablishes contact, and a mysterious werewolf with a metal detector and a penchant for calling her my lady saunters into her life.

As if all that weren’t enough, someone from her past is trying to kill her. Someone dangerous.

To survive and figure out what’s going on, Luna will have to once again embrace her power. But, after so long, will she be able to summon the wolf?

~

A contemporary fantasy series for those enjoy second-chance stories, slow-burn romance, and werewolves with a sense of humor. Pick up Way of the Wolf today!

My Review

Having enjoyed previous series by this author I was excited for this new series and got the first book in audio as I like the narrator. Sadly this book didn’t quite work as well for me as I had hoped. Not sure whether it was my mood not being right or maybe I’ve read too many books by this author and can see all the tropes and twists coming now.

Way of the Wolf follows the point of view Luna who is born a werewolf, but after killing someone she has taken a potion to suppress the wolf so it won’t happen again. Now many years later strange events are occurring, someone tries to kill her, she finds a strange artifact, a strange hot man shows up showing interest in her and Luna’s life changes again. This pulls her back in the world of the paranormal.

There’s plenty going on with the various plot lines and the beginning of the romance, but it failed to fully keep my attention. I didn’t fully warm up Luna, she seemed bitter and hurt after her divorce and while I totally understood her emotions I just don’t really like that trope and always struggle to get why she married that man in the first place. I also struggled with really feeling what Luna wanted from life, except buying her own complex to manage one day. With all the events that happen she just felt swept up in it all and reacting instead of fighting for what she wanted. The werewolf aspect I was very curious about, but I didn’t fully like how it was handled and all the pack politics and people wanting things from Luna didn’t appeal to me.

I did like the romance and the banter with Duncan. I also thought Duncan was a fun character to read about with the way he acted and joked around, but also the deeper emotions that poked through. Lindsay Buroker writes banter really well and I liked that part. Ofcourse they have some troubles to overcome before they can be together, but so far I liked the set up. There is this part later on that I saw coming as this is similar to what happened in other series. I also liked the new intern Luna has to work with and seeing them interact. I often like the relationships and friendships in Lindsay Buroker’s books and this book has a promising start in that regard, but as the book starts with her without close contact it takes a while for those to come into play. I assume later books will have even more of this.

To summarize: I really wanted to enjoy this book and while there were parts I really liked it failed to fully pull me in. This might be the case of later books in the series getting better or maybe I wasn’t in the right mood or read too many of this author’s books that they start to feel predictable. I didn’t like how everyone seemed to want something from Luna and I had trouble feeling what she really wanted and instead it felt like she was swept up in the currents and reacting to what was going on. I didn’t like the pack politics and how everyone seemed to want something from her. I did like the romance and the banter between Luna and Duncan was fun to read. I also liked reading about some of the side characters and how Luna interacted with them.