Hardcore Heroines

Anna Latham lived in Chicago as a waitress earning next to nothing and living poorly. An abusive werewolf turned her three years ago because she is a rare Omega, this means she can help calm the pack and doesn’t have to obey to orders of those in her pack. Her life before was simply to get by until her knight in shining armour killed her pack Alpha- Leo and her main abuser-Justin.
I thought Anna’s behaviour would bother me, because she acts like a submissive wolf and normally Patricia Briggs has quite strong characters, yet I actually liked her personality and thought her submissiveness was realistic, and gave her character more depth. Also, the chance to grow throughout the series, proving we can have strong female characters that aren’t mouthy.
The hero is Native American Charles, who has never before had a mate, but what he calls his ‘Brother wolf’ instantly chose Anna the moment he saw her as his mate. Neither of them know what they’re doing, and because this is written in the third person, it’s quite interesting to see their thoughts and the complete miscommunication between them as they find their footing in the relationship. Both think their doing everything wrong. Charles is a very dominant wolf yet his father-Bran is alpha and Charles is effectively the pack killing machine, he kills those who need to be killed.
Anna has to move from Chicago which she finds tough, her surroundings are completely different as she enters a plush house. Gone has her little apartment with sparse furniture, and instead of city life, there is a small town with a huge forest and scenery. Anna copes well with this and though Charles and Anna don’t know each other that well, I liked to see their relationship develop as they slowly began to trust each other and fall in love.
We gain insight into a fellow pack member Asil, his mate died long ago and he keeps having terrible dreams and asking Bran to kill him. I liked his different insight and it quickly became clear why we were told his past and troubles.
The plot slows down towards the middle when they are on a mission, focusing more on their sweet romance, but soon picked up again towards the end. The last chapter seemed slightly rushed, because I think Patricia Briggs didn’t want to lengthen it out in the next book.
Patricia has a series written before this following Mercedes Thompson, and she also has issues with abusive behaviour in the series, they are set in the same world, yet you can read this book first even though there are some references to Mercy. She first wrote about Charles to make the Marrok’s pack seem more real to the reader, she found herself liking Charles’ character and when asked to write a short story, thought he would be a good idea. Overall, I enjoyed the book and the character building, and am looking forward to reading the next in the series.
I give this 4 Stars