Today my lovelies I decided to start listening to a new book on Audible. That book is Prince of Wolves by Quinn Loftis. I reached 4% into the book before I realized that this was going to be the perfect book for something I’ve wanted to try for some time.
Welcome to a new type of post… trying to read. I’m going to start the usual way that I do, so strap in.
Cover
Which one? Well, take your pick, I feel like they’re all completely interchangeable.
From left to right it’s newest to oldest. Honestly, I like elements of each one for different reasons. On the far right I like the picture best, then in the middle, I like that font and on the left… I like that it’s absolutely terrifying and unsettling? It also happens to be the Kindle cover I have for the book. I feel like I’m looking at Amy from Amy’s Baking Company.
It has the same energy. Okay, so maybe to a lesser degree, but it feels very similar to me.
Summary
Jacque Pierce was just an ordinary 17-year-old girl getting ready to start her senior year in high school in Coldspring, Texas. When a mysterious foreign exchange student from Romania moves in across the street, Jacque and her two best friends, Sally and Jen, don’t realize the last two weeks of their summer are going to get a lot more interesting.
From the moment Jacque sets eyes on Fane she feels an instant connection, a pull like a moth to a flame. Little does she know that the flame she is drawn to is actually a Canis lupis, werewolf, and she just happens to be his mate; the other half of his soul.
The problem is Fane is not the only wolf in Coldspring, Texas.
Just as Fane and Jacque are getting to know each other, another wolf steps out to try and claim Jacque as his mate. Fane will now have to fight for the right to complete the mating bond, something that is his right by birth but is being denied him by a crazed Alpha. Will the love Fane has for Jacque be enough to give him the strength to defeat his enemy, will Jacque accept that she is Fane’s mate and complete the bond between them?
This doesn’t have… the best writing I’ve ever read. But I’ve read much worse. It wasn’t enough for me to download it on Audible and Kindle for free. (It’s free on Kindle if you want to follow along, and I have the Romance package on Audible so this ultimately was free??)
I mean, it sounds like it could be fun, I’ll admit to being an absolute sucker for this kind of thing. The whole “fated mate” idea just hits me in this weird spot that is super self-indulgent. Sometimes you just gotta have fun while you’re reading, and it’s just fun for me.
Because it seemed like it might be fun and self-indulgent I decided why not?
I wish she hadn’t done me like this.
Okay, note before we get started… I looked into this series and holy fuck. There are 11 books, and hats off to this author for being this ambitious! I mean damn. But… I start going cross-eyed while I’m reading the summaries, so that from that what you will.
What I learned was that she’s totally okay with using the G slur, so take from that what you will.
Chapter 1
Starting out, we have our main character Jacque Pierce sitting in her window seat staring at the neighbor’s house.
Gonna stop right here and just say something. I seriously would not know how to say the main character’s name properly at all if it weren’t for the audiobook. Sorry but all I can think about is Jacques Cousteau, you know, it sounds like “jock.” According to the audiobook, it is, in fact, said like Jackie.
Now that that’s out of the way…
She’s watching the other house because they’re going to be hosting a foreign exchange student this coming school year. She’s literally just been sitting there in her window seat with binoculars.
She immediately claims she’s having a “James Bond” experience. As someone who’s watched too many James Bond movies… this is nothing like it? I get it, you’re trying to come up with a spy movie. Except this is more like a procedural cop drama, not international espionage. It’s a nitpick, but it’s… stupid?
As she watches a limo pulls up. She immediately thinks,
daddy must have money.
That made me laugh.
The next line, not so much.
“Well,” she breathed out, “slap me stupid and call me silly.”
Is that a saying or something? Whatever. She’s literally drooling over a tall guy who gets out of the car. He’s stereotypically tall dark and handsome. She has an ounce of self-awareness to realize she’s drooling, making lewd comments, and chastises herself. Half the comments are out loud, half of them are internal.
We get more about what he looks like, if you’re keeping track that’s just about 5 paragraphs describing how hot he is. In the middle of it she hears a voice say her name in her head.
Jock barely spends more than two sentences thinking about it.
She calls her two friends, Jen and Sally and they agree to come over.
What follows is her friends coming over… and we get a recap of literally everything that just happened. This time Jock is telling us all about it, instead of the narrator. It takes about the same amount of time both ways. Except in the second one, we get to hear about how they’re drinking hot chocolate and eating Oreos
We finally learn something new right before the end. Jock suggests she’s crazy for hearing another voice in her head. And we learn that her family–specifically her mother–has a history of mental illness.
The three start plotting about how they’ll meet the new student at school. She thinks her mom is lame for wanting to bring fried chicken, ‘taters’ and corn on the cob, to the new kid across the street.
We get some lovely internal monologue and Jesu Christo. It’s so cringey, there are so many better ways to tell us she’s seventeen and going to be in a senior in high school.
….this was a place I feel safe and comfortable…. Just a few hours ago I was just another seventeen-year-old getting ready o start my senior year… so normal.
I actually flinched when I heard that line. Why would you think that? Why not slip it into Jen and Sally’s dialogue? Anything but this awkward forced exposition.
Jock reflects on her homecoming mums for some reason, then stares at her ceiling and watches her fan until she falls asleep.
You might not be able to tell now… but the second chapter… is honestly why I decided to do this. While listening to it on Audible it jarred me so badly that I knew I had to. I made it less than halfway through the chapter and the… let’s say “choices” the author made are… astounding.
Saddle up kids. It’s going to get weird.
DNF Diaries 