“Wonderfully unique and imaginative. I was enthralled!”—JEANIENE FROST, New York Times bestselling author, for The Last WolfCan a human truly make room in her heart for the Wild?Thea Villalobos has long since given up trying to be what others expect of her. So in Elijah Sorensson she can see through the man of the world to a man who is passionate to the point of heartbreak. But something inside … who is passionate to the point of heartbreak. But something inside him is dying…
Elijah Sorensson has all kinds of outward success: bespoke suits, designer New York City apartment, women clamoring for his attention. Except Elijah despises the human life he’s forced to endure. He’s Alpha of his generation of the Great North Pack, and the wolf inside him will no longer be restrained…
She sizes me up quickly with eyes the color of ironwood and just as unyielding.
“Thea Villalobos,” she says, and it takes me a moment to get my breath back.
Thea Villalobos. Goddess of the City of Wolves.
The Legend of All Wolves:
The Last Wolf (Book 1)
A Wolf Apart (Book 2)
What People Are Saying About The Last Wolf:
“Raw, wild, and intense—captivating to the final page.”—AMANDA BOUCHET, USA Today bestselling author of The Kingmaker Chronicles
“Pushes boundaries, and keeps you at the edge of your seat.”—TERRY SPEAR, USA Today bestselling author of the Heart of the Wolf series
“A standout…a dense, gooey chocolate cake in page form.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Outstanding world…well worth reading. Spellbound readers will watch for the next installment.”—Booklist Starred Review
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Wonderfully unique and imaginative. I was enthralled!
This is the story of an alpha wolf separated from his pack and what that isolation does to him. It’s a gritty look at what sacrifice and true community can mean, with a sexy love story woven through. I love the amazing unique shifter world and pack culture in this series, and this book is another great installment. Highly recommend for paranormal fans looking for something different.
This is another stunning entry to this series. A Wolf Apart takes a very different view of the world of the Great North pack and thus adds a new dimension that deepens the overall arc. I loved Elijah and Thea, both fantastic characters with heart and courage. I gobbled this up! A fantastic follow-up to the first book. Highly recommend!
Second book in the series. I enjoy the world set up, the different twist on shifters and wolves. The romance in this one is different it feels like it’s a main part of the story, but still is second place to Elijah’s wolf life. The romance isn’t as strong as it could be had we had different perspectives. I’m not always a fan of more than one POV in a story. It it may have helped us connect with Thea a bit better. Many times I felt myself really disliking the Pack. I felt so bad for Elijah. But what else do you expect with my silly human thinking.
I didn’t think it was possible, but I love this book even more than the first! A wonderful read. Can’t recommend it enough.
A Wolf Apart is the second book in Maria Vale’s The Legend of All Wolves. It follows the events of the first book but can be read as a standalone. It is as a compelling read as the first book. This time around we are introduced to Elijah, Alpha of the 9th Echelon who has been away from his pack for a long time. Longing to come back home, he has decided to challenge his current Alpha in order to do so. He doesn’t really anticipate that he would also be attracted to a human named Thea Villalobos, Goddess of the City Wolves. I cannot rave enough about this series, it definitely is different from most wolf shifter paranormal books around and it uniquely portrays otherwordly beings that appear more real and multilayered than any I have read before. I definitely want this series to continue and anticipating what the next book would bring to the series.
A Wolf Apart by Maria Vale is book Two in The Legend of All Wolves series. This is the story of Elijah Sorensson and Thea Villalobos. I haven’t yet read the previous book, so for me this was a standalone book.
Elijah is rich, powerful, a leader and can get any women he wants. But he’s never wanted to live the human life and wants to be free with his pack. When he is asked to help out a powerful clients garder’s niece he meets Thea. Thea is different from all the women he has known. Thea likes things simple and earthly. Elijah is attracted to her and she to him but can their feelings lead to more?
I love shiftier stories and was excited to start reading this one. But I didn’t seem to be able to connect with the characters which might have been my fault since I was excited to read this story….this was my first book by this author so I probably just need to get her writing down. Overall enjoyed their story and will look for more books by Ms. Vale.
I was excited to read Elijah Sorensson’s story after being introduced to him in The Last Wolf. However, I ended up being a bit disappointed. I enjoyed the first book a lot and was expecting a bit more from A Wolf Apart. The main reasons why this book didn’t work for me as much as the previous one, were the setting of the story and the lack of insight and growth of the main characters. The majority of the book took place in the human world, where Elijah is surrounded by humans. The lack of interaction with his pack members was one of the things that left me dissatisfied, I enjoyed the story more when he was home with the pack once a month.
The other main character and Elijah’s love interest is Thea Villalobos, an environmental conservation officer. Her character felt flat, and I was just waiting for the moment for her to come ‘alive’. She still feels like a stranger to me, and I think I would’ve learned more about her if there were chapters in her POV included in the book. This was one of the reason I didn’t really feel and believe in their love, and it developed really fast. A Wolf Apart doesn’t feel like a complete story, and that is why I was a bit let down. However, the scenes with the pack members were the best. I just love seeing Elijah in his natural habitat, and interacting with his family. I also enjoyed reading about his internal struggles and trying to hold on to his true self. I also want to mention that the story kept me interested enough to finish it. I was just expecting some extras that would’ve elevated the story more. I really hope that the story will pick up more in the next book(s).
Elijah is a success in the human world, women, apartments and money. It’s all his, on a plate for him, but he hates the human world. It’s a facade he can’t continue for much longer, but he has to, his pack rely on him. But it’s killing him slowly.
We see this story through Elijah’s eyes. His loyalty and duty to the pack is evident in his sacrifice. He longs to be free, he longs for the pack life.
The levels in the pack hierarchy is very insightful. The stories are so different from what I’ve read before. These wolves live and breathe pack life. They shift into their “human skins” only when necessary.
The structure is different in these books. There are alphas for each age group(called an echelon), and they in turn answer to an alpha pair.
Thea is human, she doesn’t live like other people. She doesn’t suffer fools, she speaks her mind, so she is an ideal mate for Elijah, but wolves don’t mate humans, so if he takes her back to the pack, this could spell trouble for the couple. She makes him feel alive, as only being in his wolf form could bring him.
So, will they be allowed to stay together? Will Elijah sacrifice his happiness with Thea? Will he choose pack over his own happiness?
I guess your going to have to read the book to find out
A Wolf Apart was, well, a hard read. Okay, maybe not hard, but it certainly was a struggle for me to get through. I was well into the book before I ever warmed up to Elijah. It’s told from Elijah’s first person POV, and since it wasn’t until the end I warmed up to him, you can see why this would be a struggle.
Quick rundown: Elijah is slowly falling apart. He’s desperate to return to Pack lands permanently, but the Alpha says no. He needs to stay Offland so he can continue to protect the Pack. The continued alienation from Pack and home is wearing him down. He’s lonely and lost. Going through the motions of keeping up the façade of being a human is killing him inside. Until he’s assigned a pro bono case. An environmental conservation office is being sued for springing traps and trespassing. Compared to the other human women Elijah has had in his life, there’s nothing remarkable about Thea. Yet there is something about her that speaks to his broken soul. Despite it being against Pack law, he’s hoping she can help heal what is broken inside him, fill the missing part of his soul.
Sigh. I really enjoyed the first book in the series because it was so different from most PNR books I have read. But this one was just so… What the story revolves around is the very thing I struggled with, namely: Elijah. I get it, he’s hurting wanting to be home but forced to stay where he is. Putting on a mask, pretending to be human is making him miserable. Labels, social dances, forced to keep going on while dying inside. This is drummed into the story so hard even if you are skimming, you would get it. So, yes; Got. It. I did finally hit a point that his constant monologue of being away got annoying to me. It had me wanting to scream you go home once a month for the Iron Moon so get over it!
The introduction of Thea to the story definitely did help perk up the story. I liked the concept of her character. We don’t get to know her very well since the story is told from Elijah. It had me wishing the story was not done in first person. Or at least, maybe give her a voice. I would have loved to know what was going through her head when the story started getting REALLY interesting.
Speaking of REALLY interesting, for me that didn’t occur until I hit well pass the half way point. When that happens, when it takes the better half of the story to finally hook me in, it makes everything tedious and difficult to empathize with the MC. And that was my problem. I just hit a point where I didn’t care about Elijah anymore. However, once things picked up, they really got good. Whoa! Now that was quite the ending. It was great to experience the characters from the previous story and I loved finding out what was going on with Silver and Ti. Inserted into the ending you can tell there will be more to the story about wolves and shifters to the point you can almost see where it may be headed. Book one in The Legend of All Wolves Series lured me in. Book two has semi-pushed me away. Since I see the potential of what is coming up next, for now I will tentatively say I will read the next.
Stars: 2 1/2