Really nice balance of the paranormal with police procedural, and I liked the main character. She was pretty relateable, though most of the supporting cast didn't live up to the story.

The only thing that bothered me so much was the author being unable to stick to one form of cursing through the book. Either Kara was saying damn or even darn, then all of sudden the fucks were flying all over the place. I don't care about swearing -- I love a good fucking fuck from time to time -- but be consistent about it.

There was really something fascinating here that makes the book worth a read: Elena's struggle between her nature and the human life she thinks she wants to lead. I loved that it all seemed natural, that the romance aspect of it was only a part of her struggle, that her own issues with herself, not the wolf, were a large part of the problem.

I'm astounded at how a novel with such an interesting character struggle at its core was so boring.

I love Alexia and the entire Parasol Protectorate world more than I can say.

2.5 stars

I'm not really sure how I feel about this. One on hand, it was a pretty nice twist on most urban fantasy novels, adding a whole This Is Our Silly Office element to it, but that went way overboard. All the pamphlets, seminars and paperwork being mentioned over and over got really old after the first third.

Also, I'm not sure what Strout was going for when it came to Simon's voice. Half the time his narrative made him sound like a regular guy, then the rest of the time it was all "oh look at how clever I am saying noob and using WTF in my narrative!"

I'm not even going to mention how fumbling the romance subplot was, or how insipid Jane's

Spoiler

diary entries were when Simon took a look in them

.

Bottom line, this is an interesting go to for a UF fix and a decent male lead. It just doesn't live up to what it wants to be.