The story overall is great. There are characters I cared about and the love story was nicely done. So, why not five stars? After an interesting and well-paced start, the action slows down with a bit too much time spent on a rather flimsy rationale for the angst of the lead character. It became tedious after a while and felt like the author was more concerned with page count than plot. I still like the book well enough that I’ve bought the second one in the series and I’d recommend it as a good read for anyone whose tastes run to a different take on werewolves and magic.