Alpha & Omega, Book 4
Synopsis: For once, mated werewolves Charles and Anna are not traveling because of Charles’s role as his father’s enforcer. This time, their trip to Arizona is purely personal, as Charles plans to buy Anna a horse for her birthday. Or at least it starts out that way… Charles and Anna soon discover that a dangerous Fae being is on the loose, replacing human children with simulacrums. The Fae’s cold war with humanity is about to heat up—and Charles and Anna are in the crossfire.
Review: With this fourth installment, Patricia Briggs builds on the backdrop initiated in book 3 and developped in Mercy’s seventh and eighth adventures. It becomes more and more necessary to read both series in parallel if you don’t want to miss anything. War is now declared between Faes and humans and wolfs are in danger of being caught in the crossfire. At some point, they will have to choose their camp.
But for the time beeing, Charles would prefer to spend some quality time with his wife. He takes her on vacation to see an old friend of his and get Anna a horse for her birthday. But where Charles and Anna go, trouble follows.
Not only is Charles’s friend, Joseph, old and sick, but his family is also attacked by a dangerous creature. It becomes obvious that there is some supernatural mystery going on and our werewolf couple will work to resolve it, even if danger is brewing.
Without too much details, I will just stay that Patricia Briggs has created a great suspense story. It is not as fast paced as Mercy’s adventures, but it is engaging nevertheless. Some parts were perhaps a bit too slow for my taste (and with way too many references about horses), but the whole kept me interested. Sadly, with Anna and Charles on holidays, I kept missing some characters from Montana like Bran or Asil.
The good part about the story, though, is that you get to know more of Charles. This werewolf has live a long life before Anna, parts of it you discover through very interesting flashbacks. And as I am a big fan of Charles, I was thrilled about it. He is a grumpy and sometimes scarry guy, a very dangerous alpha with magical powers, but he never goes all caveman on people. No, Charles is calm, rational but still human. Here particularly, he shows some more fragile and tormented sides of himself.
Anna, on the opposite, is still too tame for my taste. On one side, her soft and calm personality is a nice change from all these badass and impulsive UF heroines. She is also no pushover and knows how to pick her fights. On the other side, I’m under the impression that everything around her revolves around Charles and her ambitions as a wife, which is sometimes a bit boring.
Their relationship however is adorable. It is one based on mutual understanding and respect, with a healthy dose of passionate love. One of two peoples so in tune with each other that they are able to read even the slightest nuances. I had trouble to believe in it at the beginning of their adventures but, book after book, I saw it flourish and become more grounded. I just love that.