What a fun little read. Considering it’s only 300 pages there is a lot jam packed into this book. While the short length doesn’t allow for the deep dive of information and relationship building, it’s still a good read. Given that it’s set in the human world, with a secret magic society, there’s not an extensive need for world building here, mostly building of the magic system.
We’ve got Twin witches, Tessa and Tala.
When Tessa is abducted and the authorities won’t help because she has a tendency to be dramatic and run off without telling anyone, Tala hires a dangerous Hunter to track her down. The “fire wolf” as he’s known helps Tala locate and rescue Tessa, while it turns out there’s a lot more to her abduction than first realised. Tessa has been lying to people, claiming she has powers beyond what she should, when in fact it’s Tala with the enhanced powers and Tessa has almost none. Tala was supposed to be the victim of the kidnapping, as the gang that took Tessa have been kidnapping other powerful supernatural beings as well. While coming to terms with all this information, Tala is fighting off the mating bond of the Fire Wolf, after he’s lied to her.
This is well written for such a short story. The pace is fast and actioned packed, as expected for a quick 300 pages, at no point does it get boring and remains easy to follow. Due to the shortened length of the story it doesn’t really allow for the deep connection of relationship and world building as some other story’s, in saying that even with the short storyline, you’re not left feeling like anything is missing from the story because the detail that is included is thorough and decently well explained.
Tala is an exceptionally powerful witch, who has been hiding the true extent of her powers due to concern she could be targeted. She’s stubborn, feisty and a boss bitch. Doesn’t take shit from anyone and is happy to stand up to whoever she needs to. Everyone’s scared of the fire wolf but she goes toe to toe with him during their adventure of trying to find her sister.
There’s a real intelligence to her, considering she figures out their is a mating bond in place well before the fire wolf does, and considering it’s his order is creating the bond you’d think he’d be more aware of it. She quickly pieces together the apparent crime syndicate for kidnapping powerful beings and that the fire wolf wasn’t just working for her, but other people linked into these kidnapping too.
While the story is short and doesn’t allow for much of a deep dive into Tala and Tessa’s background, there is still thorough explanation as to why she is the way she is, and the reason she has for hiding her power in the first place.
Her being upset and feeling betrayed by the fire wolf when she figures out that he was working for another person to locate a kidnapped being before he started helping her, is immature. Given that this is probably a trope leading into the next book of her hating him and feeling betrayed, it’s obviously an additive to the storyline, but it’s immature, and takes away from any significant character development. He’s a hired Hunter, he owes Tala nothing and the fact that she’s upset he’s working for other people is egotistical.
The fire wolf, or Kaillen as we find out is his real name, is a scary, powerful, arrogant, forced to be reckoned with as described through the start of the book when Tala is trying to hire someone to track down her kidnapped sister. His sense of power and arrogance is well written into the story and developed through the first half of the book, given that this is a shortened story, there is a thorough explanation of who he is as a person, somewhat deeper than surface level. The idea that he doesn’t realise the mating bond because he’s out of tune with his order is really interesting and adds a good dynamic to the storyline. He’s obviously aware that something is going on given the overwhelming need he feels to be with Tala and protect her, and the idea that he doesn’t realise what’s going on is a different and enjoyable aspect to his character. He’s clearly powerful and a force of nature given how quickly he finds Tessa, really looking forward to his development in future books.
I knew I would hate Tessa from the get go. As soon as it became relevant that she is immature, scatterbrained, reckless, and impulsive I knew she was going to be annoying. And annoying she is. The fact that she had been lying about her level of power didn’t seem integral at first, given that Tala didn’t want to be known for the power. But once we find out that Tessa had been going around spilling Tala’s deepest secret, which could put her in significant danger, I knew that this character wasn’t going to develop far at least in this book. It’s unsurprising that jealousy is then extended into the framework of her character, blaming Tala for stealing her magic in the womb. Jealousy fits in well with her characteristics. Will she have a redemption arc in future books? Who knows. But from the start, I think it was fairly obvious she’s a bitch and can’t be trusted.
Tala not wanting to be a part of the mating bond is not a new basis of a storyline. Well, this has been used in multiple popular fantasy works it’ll be interesting to see if an individual shift can be written into this story. The addition of the crime syndicate kidnapping people should extend their story into future books well. It’ll be interesting to see the relationship dynamics and how they build in future books.