The Art of Avoiding Your Werewolf

Wildwood #1

by Lola Glass

I almost hooked up with a werewolf… but before we got to third base, he dragged me off to jail.

Apparently, he's the leader of the pack in town.

The fact that I’m an illegal blood wolf—a vampire/werewolf hybrid—doesn’t help my case.

And he didn't appreciate me accidentally biting him when we were kissing, either.

Luckily, or unluckily, he seems to think I'm his true mate, which means he won't let anyone hurt me.

But he also won't let me go.

Between his possessiveness, my need to be near him, and the vampire clan hunting me, one thing's becoming clear:

I won't be able to avoid my werewolf forever.

This is a steamy, fun, full-length standalone romance with a happily ever after!

Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Paranormal, Paranormal Romance, Vampires, Shapeshifters, Werewolves

265 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 21, 2024

About the author

Lola is a book lover with a *slight* romance obsession and a passion for love. Especially love between sassy women and huge, growly magical men ;)

When she's not reading or writing up a storm, she's hanging out with her husband and three kids, or baking something sugary that she *probably* shouldn't eat (but will).

A guide to her books can be found on her website. All of her series can be read entirely on their own, so there's no necessary reading order.

For a full list of her work, check out https://www.authorlolaglass.com/

Reviews

[~Jennifer~]

3.5

[Jo Bennesch]

3.5/5⭐️
3/5🌶

Una historia muy linda y divertida. No muy larga.

Madd y Love son sobrenaturales, él es un lobo alfa y ella una cruza entre lobo y vampiro creada por los vampiros como fuente de alimento. ♥️

El mundo creado es interesante aunque no se profundiza mucho, pero tengo entendido que se extiende a otras sagas previas.

Es una comedia sobrenatural muy divertida. Las "charlas" de los protagonistas con su lobo interior me sacaron muchas risas.

Es sexy sin tener mucho spicy, (solo al final se pone más hot).

En resumen historia corta y divertida.
Lo recomiendo.❤️

[Sara Virasami]

Cozy, sweet & smutty.
An absolute pleasure of a read!
I now want jelly doughnuts...

[Hermelien1989]

Loved this book😍😍😍😍
There were struggles evrything.

[Zoe]

This made no sense. FMC was constantly ignored and gaslit and the MMC would apologize and do one nice thing and she would go “oh gosh, you’re such a big strong manly werewolf, you just do you” and I got SO upset on MULTIPLE occasions regarding how gaslit and unsupported and manipulated she was. And then she went from being skeptical and cynical (and smart) to being trusting and in love (and TSTL) for absolutely no reason. A single day had passed and BOOM! She’s in love.

Two stars because I loved the best friend bathing herself in perfume to the point of foulness to avoid a mate bond.

[BookishKB]

Very low angst paranormal romance 🥰

[Elizabeth]

3.5 stars. Pretty good but there were a couple of iffy bits. Not very deep or long. Plus, audiobook was available through Hoopla which is always a plus.

Hero has been celibate for over 100 years and has never orgasmed with a woman. He tried having sex a couple of times because he thought he might have found his mate but when the women weren't a connection, he lost interest and pulled away. Sounds like he still treated them with respect.

She's a virgin.

Not a fan of how many times he calls her his "female". His "woman" wouldn't have been great but it would have been better.

I also wasn't a fan of the negative motivation and how she fights him for no good reason. It resolved really fast when it resolved.

[Yesse]

Es un 95% romance y un 5% fantasía. La construcción del mundo es casi nula, y toda la trama sobre los lobos de sangre se explica en unos cuantos diálogos. La parte romántica no es mala, pero es olvidable.

Love, Tori y Sienna son lobas de sangre, los lobos de sangre son mitad lobos y mitad vampiros y estos lobos de sangre son un experimento cruel de un clan de vampiros que las crearon para tener siempre una fuente de sangre.
Love y Tori logran escapar y se esconden en una ciudad dominada por lobos.
Una noche mientras Love espera a Tori conoce a Madd estos sienten una conexión y deciden irse a juntos, como Love no ha consumido sangre durante tres semanas muerde a Madd cuando se están besando(Madd no sabia que Love era vampiro), Un poco después Madd le dice que son compañeros y que el la va a proteger de lo vampiros.
Se enamoran y fin.

Si hubiera profundizado en la historia de los lobos de sangre sería mucho más interesante.
Y sobre Sienna soy consciente que tiene su propio libro pero que le costaba darle un poquito de relevancia a su rescate, lo solucionan con unos pinches mensajes de texto.
Y otra cosa no muestran casi nada de su amistad con Sienna y Tori y eso si me molesto, con una escena estaría conforme.

2.5/5⭐️ 2/5🌶

[Musa ༊*·˚]

it was mild at best

[Preslee Lynn]

I ABSOLUTELY loved the Deceit & Devotion series along with the Mate Mountain series!!

Overall, this book took me longer to get through, but I'm already on book number 2 :)

[Lauren Lara]

Humans, witches, vampire’s, wolf shifters & mate bonds! His & Her POVs. One bed, virginity, force proximity, fated mates tropes. This was such an adorable read! Highly recommend for those new to fantasy romance!

[Aarann]

This was surprisingly good. Admittedly, the world-building is a little weak, and as mentioned in the author's note, the existence of the blood wolves left something to be desired. (Why would a vampire create another vampire, crossed with a shifter, to create a delicacy? Why is that not some sort of cannibalism? Then again, in this world, vampire mates can only feed from each other, which seems like a sort of weird recycled two-girls-one-cup style of nutrient to me.)

But this book had something that a lot of romance authors tend to leave out: romance. I mean, yeah, we all get the smexy times in romance novels, but anyone who read more than a few knows that the storylines tend to be meet, fight, kiss, fight, kiss, kiss, fight, shag, fight, fight, fight, SHAAAAAG, HEA. The characters usually feel like cardboard cutouts of each other, especially the men, and there isn't a lot of on-page "getting to know you" outside of sharing traumatic backstories that make alpholes feel human and doormats feel sympathetic.

And yeah, there was some of that here. I even understand why authors tend to "yada yada" over getting-to-know you scenes. But in this book, what I really liked is that the author didn't do that -- she allowed them to get to know each other as people. And it isn't all verbal, although there were some of those too. For example, rather than simply buying her a new designer wardrobe, all "billionaire" style, Madd notes her quirky style based on one meeting together, buys shoes similar to what she was wearing, but without holes, buys dresses similar to what she was wearing when they met (again, but in better shape), notes without her telling him that she's self-conscious about her hair looking a certain quirky way, how she likes to smell, that she likes makeup and what kind... that sort of thing. He thinks about it. He takes her tastes into account. That is so much sweeter and romantic to me than buying an entire wardrobe of designer dresses that cost more than my yearly salary. It gave me a bit of the same vibe that made me pay attention to Cate C. Wells even when the first book I read by her didn't really "hit" with me (and honestly, several since haven't, but I'd still classify myself as a "fan" of that author and hope to do the same with this one).

And sure, yeah, this is a werewolf mate novel, so there's plenty of alpha you-will-be-mine stuff, but it didn't feel so arbitrary. By the end of the book, it actually made sense on the page that these two liked each other, brought out the best in each other, made each other laugh. And yeah, by the end it did evolve (or devolve) into pornier territory, and there were plenty of arguments along the way, but in the meantime, it actually felt like two people getting to know each other.

So why did this not rate higher? 1) The first half of the book (ish) happened in 24 hours and it just seemed like too much, too fast. 2) Despite how very much I enjoyed it, I'm not sure it's one I'd check out from KU again, or buy, for a re-read. 3) There wasn't much tension from the danger Love and Tori believed they were in and any that might have been happened off page, so we don't even really see the comeuppance for their torturers. 4) Love has a slight Not-Like-Other-Girls vibe to her. 5) I'm not entirely sure.

I do know I'll absolutely be looking for more written by Lola Glass, although I might skip the other two books in this series and look at some of her others instead.

[Noone]

This book is very much the cozy type at least up to 80% which is as far as I have read.
I didn't expect that because it isn't tagged as such. It was too much cozy for me.
Things just go well the whole time. Everything just gets better without any hard to overcome challenges whatsoever. The MMC fulfills the FMCs every wish after the FMC had a very rough early life which we learn next to nothing about but you can imagine some of it at least.
All this book is is the FMC being pampered and taken care of (in all ways) really.
But that is arguable not necessarily a flaw. It's what the book wanted to be so its more a me-thing I guess.

My more objective criticism is that the entire premise and the title of the book itself are just false.
The author tries hard to squeeze this will-they-won't-they angsty thing in there but it fails miserably.
The explanations and reasons for why the MC acts the way she does in terms of trying to avoid her werewolf are just utterly unbelievable and feel completely out of place.
It's the only real conflict that is going on and its completely contrived and makes no sense.
The book never even tries to come up with believable reasons for the whole avoidance game and every time the author brings it up it comes completely out of left field and distrupts immersion.
It undermines the MC as a consistent character and it doesn't even succeed in motivating any drama or angst either.

It feels like the author just wrote a generic feel-good urban romantasy but every now and then remembered that she named the book "the art of avoiding ..." and had to add some avoiding into it at random times.

Another thing some people might have an issue with is the anchient werewolf alpha + young virgin MC trope so avoid if that is something you are not willing to put up with. In this case it is very much irrelevant for the story though. There wouldn't be any difference even if the love interest was 25 like her. Which is another flaw in itself I guess?

[SheLove2Read]

I think this was supposed to be cute. It wasn't. Almost no world-building, zero backstory beyond "we ran away". OTT love interest that honestly was a little corny and a lot of cringe. 1.5 stars

[Amanda]

Okay don’t gotta finish this book to know it won’t get higher than 4 stars for me. (Will edit if I need to emotionally lower it once I finish)[Edit: I'd rate it a 3.5/5]

-experience through audiobook-


˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗


First of all, my biggest grate, why I killed one of the stars at 45% in, is that I cannot stand the amount of times I have heard the phrase “my wolf purred.”

Like no, it didn’t.
Canines don’t purr.
Don’t piss me off.

But another issue I have is how the MMC treats the FMC.

I know for some ladies, they want that absolute princess treatment, of never opening their own doors, never needing to lift a finger when their lover will do it for them.

But the MMC just does it straight off before they’re even a couple and it feels more like he’s infantilizing her rather than treating her like a princess. Like sir, she doesn’t need to sit on your lap, have you open the take out container for her, and open her utensils all in one moment.

Outside of those scenes, I’m enjoying it alright, but overall the MMC gives me such an ick.

Minor Edit: I'm not a huge fan of the female narrator. She's rather flat when it comes to dialogue and doesn't give them much emotion, and rather just reads the lines. Which is odd, considering she puts more emotion and flow into the regular sentences.

[Sabrina]

A cute & easy read with some spice!✨🐺 I felt that there could have been a bit more world building and a bit more development in terms of the MMC. He felt a bit flat for me. But other than that I really enjoyed reading this and I’m excited to jump back into the world in the next book. 3.5 ⭐️

✨Paranormal Romance
✨Werewolves & Blood Wolves
✨Fated Mates
✨Grumpy MMC
✨Forced proximity

[Kimmy’s Reads!]

Werewolves while I do hair !! This is the perfect treat. I had about 5 hours of Audio which perfectly ended about 30 mins after I finished my mom’s hair !! The book takes the reader on a whirlwind of emotions while Love and Madd try to get their lives in check. This was so cute and I love that it’s still in the world of demons and vampires 😍🩸💉!

[Cristina]

3’25✨

[Kay H]

Decent start to a series, though I wish there was a more prevalent plot outside of the romance. Has all the Lola Glass sparkle that you can expect with her books.

[Maja Madsen]

3.5⭐️

[LJane]

3/5 stars, listened as an audiobook. Literally perfect quick fun read to get me out of my reading slump.

[Anila]

Her books are becoming a bit formulaic for me, but still enjoyed this one.

[Jack-Jack]

3.5 stars

I'll put a little warning for people, and me, just in case. I know it is obvious but you never know.

Disclaimer: The events, actions, and behaviours depicted in this work of fiction are purely imaginative and should not be replicated in real life. Reader discretion is advised.


So, the story was sweet for the most part. It's been a while since I've read such lovely dovely/almost human MMC and avoidant but likeable FMC.

There was just a little issue regarding the instantaneous/cringey aspect of the matter. And the overbearing and stalk-ish behaviour of the MMC. In fiction, there is a space where we can ignore this, but some of the scenes here were so...characteristic and FAMILIAR.

I’d thought I was attracted to her when she was sweet and delicate, but that desire had nothing on the insane lust I had been raging against since she started arguing with me.
Staring at her unconscious form in our bed, my wolf had one thought I agreed with:

“She belongs to us.”

I mean...



And not the FMC going through his phone

Even when I scrolled back a few years in his texts, the conversations were all the same.
Short.
Unemotional.
Lacking effort.
The more I read, the more curious I became.
Who was Madd, really? What was he like? How was he different with me?
The only way to find out was to talk to him, to get to know him.

Girl, not you too



The similarities were there. C’mon, you can’t deny it!



But whatever. It was short and sort of sweet, not that harsh. Just for when you have lots of time to spare.

[Jamie]

I’m not entirely sure why I finished this book considering it really wasn’t my cup of tea. But I think it has to do with the fact that it was so simple and formulaic that it didn’t really make me think at all while I was reading.

Love and Madd, the two main characters, were not complex or fully developed characters. They had singular roles to play in this book and they played them exactly the way they were supposed to. That reason being to be in love/lust with each other. That was also the plot. Just the two characters circling around the whole “mate” thing without a single care to anything else happening around them. The side characters? They were just placeholders for future books in the series.

Disappointed is definitely a word I’d use to describe how I felt about this book. But id also say that it does have the potential to be better. Since it’s pretty obvious that there is little to no editing, I’d recommend the author does another draft of this book and add in character depth and action scenes. Maybe try to throw in a little plot while they are there. Honestly, as much as I appreciate KU, i really think that it’s harming a lot of indie authors who are pushing out content way too quickly. Most KU books I’m reading these days are so poorly edited it’s awful. The books are truly equivalent to the first draft chapters that I used to read on the wattpad.

[~♥*Marianna*♥~]

Nothing bad happened, which means: there was almost no plot. The only plot I saw was the heroine not wanting a mate bond right away but she still lived with him, slept with him and in the end had sex with him. Somewhere in the end they must’ve mated but by then I was skimming a LOT, skimming for the plot to show up. It never did. I skimmed the sex scenes after their first time too. There was no tension left in the book for them to be interesting anymore. Idk… I hear the next book is almost exactly the same as this one only with a different couple. Probably not worth it.

[Migeldy Mauri]

🤦🏻‍♀️

Just nooo. Ugh I don't even know where to start. The story made me feel a bit discombobulated. I didn't enjoy the writing style, there was no world building. I didn't see no character development, It was just all over the place.
I didn't feel no actual connection between the mcs. Lovene was annoying and childish. Madd was just Madd, a possessive clingy alphahole, not very likable tbh. This book gave Wattpad vibes and not even reading in tandem with the audiobook helped.

[kase]

2.5 stars rounded up

Another mindless easy lil read but this is werewolves and vampires not dragons. I mean I keep reading them so they can’t be that terrible. But at the same time I’m half watching love island while reading them so I’m not looking for a complex read

[Irum]

This basically falls under the h inexperienced virgin and the experienced H 🤮

No thank you ✋had to DNF 38% in

[Megz]

DNF. The style of writing was not for me, and I didn’t like how the story moved. I didn’t like their first encounter at all, so I just will not finish.

[Jennifer]

Potentially offensive items (incomplete because I did not finish): adult situations, (attempted) premarital sex, offensive language/ profuse swearing, (mentioned) violence against women, mature themes, lying, eating disorders, supernatural powers

This feels like AI-writing. There are many chapters that don't go anywhere, things that don't make any sense, and it devolves into one-sentence paragraphs--sometimes one-word, one-sentence paragraphs. I couldn't finish it.

The main character is a vampire-werewolf that was apparently created to be a vampire blood source. She and her friend ran away from this life and are living in a solely werewolf-controlled town. She meets a werewolf in a bar, and both of them want to hook up because they are "mated." So, she goes home with him to have sex, and during that process (which doesn't fully happen), she bites him, and he finds out she is a vampire. As the back of the book says, he then takes her to the police for questioning. He is not a police officer.

I thought the premise on the back of the book was interesting, but as with most AI books, there is no plot here. I made it halfway through, and she was just moving in with him, but in book time this is almost immediately. Once he finds out she is a vampire and agrees to feed her, ironically, she then spends the rest of the time avoiding having sex with him. That's right: This man she went home with solely to have sex with him after just meeting him offers to take care of her, and she lets him but then refuses to have sex with him. (Note: I don't have a problem with her not wanting to have sex with someone she just met. I have a problem with her wanting to do that in the first place. That her character completely changes after she literally bites the man and he takes her to be questioned by the cops is just one of those inexplicable AI-style choices a main character would make.)

I have no clue if they ever do have sex, but make no mistake--that is all they talk about and think about doing 80% of the time. This is basically an erotica without the sex for the first one hundred pages. There could be a story with vampires coming after her and her friend or some sort of relationship development, but instead we basically get two animals in heat trying not to have sex with each other over the course of a few days.