This book is the prequel to the A Bite of Magic series and the main characters are Tamara and Isaiah. Tamara has just graduated and is getting ready to go off to college. While her parents are away on a trip, she keeps getting a load of people coming to her door and following her, telling her she needs to go with them and telling her strange tales of magic and werewolves. She escapes in her car and goes camping in the mountains to get away from them all, but something strange happens to her shortly after she gets there. Isaiah has also graduated with his best friend Alan, and they have gone hiking in the mountains for the weekend, before they have to start work for real, in Alan’s father’s garage. While on the hike and getting hotter and sweatier by the minute, they suddenly encounter a wolf or coyote, that runs up to Isaiah and tries to play with him, which looks like it is trying to attack him. Alan tries to hit it with a rock, but it manages to grab Isaiah by the leg, biting him badly. This wild animal attack changes his life for ever more, as he starts to notice he is stronger and quicker in the weeks that follow.
Isaiah gets an invite to a house out in the woods, to do some fence building and earn some extra cash. What he finds when he turns up is more young people like him, werewolves, mostly from accidental biting incidents, led by a man called Walter who owns the land and is a born werewolf, able to shift at will. He has contained a large fifty acre section of his land with tall fencing, so all the wolves can feel safe and no one can get at them. Most have no idea of the dangers their new status could bring to them, especially from hunters or those who hate them. This is where he learns to shift for the first time, of course discovered by Alan, who followed his best friend, worried he was joining some sort of cult! Tamara moves to Savannah for college and has an introduction to the wolf pack there, coming face to face with Isaiah again, who has no idea that she is the one who bit him and caused his life to change so drastically! They are also fated mates, not that either of them really know what that means for their futures, apart from a great pull towards each other that they can’t deny. Tamara does some reading at Walter’s and learns she can break the bond or not complete t to start with, which would have been easier.
She is guilty of her actions during that first shift, when she was out of control and had no real idea of what she and her wolf were doing. She does know that Isaiah is unlikely to want to be with the very person who he blames for ruining his life and his hopes for the future, never mind put him in danger just for what he now is. She tries to get her nerve up to tell him, but keeps putting it off as they get closer and closer romantically and as friends. When he does find out her secret, he isn’t going to take the news well at all! Tamara hoped that he would have gotten to know her well enough to realise she hadn’t done it deliberately and that she felt the same pull he did to become mates. A little interference from a witch with a potion to break their bond, but only if they both want it, is the only solution now after they have completed the bond. Parts of the story are written with Alan making mention of telling his own teen son about magic and werewolves and he and Isaiah are looking back at when Alan was first introduced to it all. A great set of characters that set a solid foundation for the series and I can’t wait to see more about them and where they have ended up. I look forward to reading the next book in the series which deals with the witch’s coven. I received an ARC copy of this book from BookSprout ad I have freely given my own opinion of the book above.