Early Book Review: The Lost Wolf's Destiny by Karen Whiddon

The Lost Wolf's Destiny by Karen Whiddon is an urban fantasy and romance that is scheduled for release on September 3 2013. Blythe Daphne is a desperate mother, looking for a miracle to cure her ailing daughter. She has tried everything in conventional medicine, but her daughter is running out of time. Lucas Kenyon is a werewolf with no connection to others like him. He fled his father, a cruel cult leader, as a teenager and has vowed never to return. But in the moment Lucas saw Blythe on the television news agreeing to take her daughter to his father's compound for healing, he knew that she was in terrible danger because she was a shape shifter, like him. Lucas is willing to face down his father and risk everything to save Blythe and her young daughter from a man he knows is evil personified. A man who believes all shape shifters are demons straight from hell. But Lucas knows he must never reveal a secret from his past, not even to the one woman who could heal him.

The Lost Wolf's Destiny offers up every urban fantasy cliche. There is Lucas, the wounded, self punishing paranormal out to save the girl he just knows is his mate the instant he sees her. There is Blythe, the sometimes smart and strong, but mostly in need of said saving girl. And then there is the bad guy, a creepy cult leader with tons of money and influence that seems unstoppable, until the good guys win of course. There is even there mysterious pack organization that does what it does, and no one knows quite who to trust or what is going on. All in all, it felt rather like the author grabbed all the things she thought were expected and shoved them together with no concern to making the relationship between Blythe and Lucas grow and come together. Part of my issue here was with Blythe, who does not seem all that bright to me. She agrees to go to the compound, which she already feels is unsafe but brings her ailing daughter anyway. Then she lets the kid out of her sight! As a mother myself, I would have run from the creepy man, on the news or not, and been out of Texas all together within minutes of meeting him, but then there would be no story. Lucas is almost an alpha male, but falls short of the mark, I much preferred some of his acquaintances, but perhaps that is just because they did not get much page time.

The Lost Wolf's Destiny was not a completely horrible book, but I have come to expect much more from my urban fantasy than this. I think that my real disappoint was because there is a lot of potential in this story, if done differently it could have been fantastic. Less important, but still slightly irksome to me, is that I found the cover to be a complete mismatch to the feel of the story.