Reviews with content warning for Animal cruelty - Schatten des Wolfes

Anna was attacked and changed into a werewolf three years ago, and spent the intervening time being abused by her pack. Charles is the younger son of Bran, the Marrok, sent to deal with problems in Anna’s pack. Their wolves almost immediately bonded and the novel opens with Bran helping Anna move out of her apartment so she can move in with Charles. This is a cold open which can be jarring, but it gets going quickly. I like Charles and Anna’s relationship, and this book as a whole has a strong focus on connection and healthy boundaries in relationships, along with a villain whose arc is the antithesis of those concepts. It makes for a strong story and an emotionally coherent narrative arc.

The worldbuilding style is odd, as this book is kind of a sequel twice over, while still potentially being the first book a particular reader might find in this set of stories. It’s the direct sequel to the novella “Alpha and Omega” which is itself kind of a “meanwhile, elsewhere” story which is set during the events of MOON CALLED, the first book in the Mercedes Thompson series. It’s assumed that the reader at minimum knows what happened in the novella, though someone who had read MOON CALLED but not “Alpha and Omega” might be able to keep up enough to enjoy it. It shows a different side of Bran and Charles than the Mercy Thompson books do, while introducing Anna, a recently abused Omega werewolf who is now Charles’s mate, despite having known him for barely a day when their wolves bonded. CRY WOLF is about what happens immediately after Anna’s abusers were dealt with, starting with her accompanying Charles to his home in Montana. There they try to figure out their brand new relationship, navigating love (and maybe sex) in the wake of horrific abuse which Anna can scarcely believe is over. The main plot intertwines their relationship with a hunt for a werewolf in the mountains after a hiker and a parker ranger are attacked in separate incidents. There’s a strong focus on Anna learning to feel safe with Charles, and how coping mechanisms she used to get through the abuse might make things more complicated now.

When thought of as a sequel, it wraps up a bunch of things left hanging from A&O while giving a status update in the aftermath of MC. It has a new storyline (the mountain journey) which is distinct from both of them. It introduces and resolves Asil’s present issues as well as Walter’s storyline, neither of which were previewed elsewhere. It establishes a new status quo for the characters but doesn’t specifically leave something dangling for later (other than Anna and Charles’s continued relationship). Anna and Charles are returning narrators from A&O, and their voices are consistent with their previous appearances. Asil is a new narrator, along with brief sections from Walter. Despite being the first book of a series, this is best read after MOON CALLED and “Alpha and Omega” (in the interest of both chronology and clarity).

Content Warnings

ashleycmms's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Content Warnings

sidhewitch's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Audiobook Review.

Don't read this if you haven't first read Alpha & Omega, the novella that introduces Charles and Anna. Every list says Cry Wolf is the first of the series, but it's really not - that novella is. It also may be helpful to know this ties into the Mercy Thompson series, but for this book at least it is unnecessary to read Moon Called before you read this.

I really enjoyed this book, though it moved a little slowly and the audiobook at times made perspective changes a little difficult to pick up on right away. You might see the "Alpha and Omega" title and think this is going to be Omegaverse, but while it shares some conventions with that trope, this isn't erotica even in the slightest. This is Urban Fantasy. Anna is an Omega, a rare type of werewolf who exists between and outside the werewolf hierarchy of Dominant Alpha's and Submissive Beta's. As a long-time victim of abuse, she doesn't have any faith in her strength or her power, and a lot of this book is about her learning how to trust both others and herself.

It's also about a weird left-field villain who shows up at the midpoint of the book with little to no preamble. You just find out about a Thing which has happened, and that leads down the path to said Villain, and then the rest of the book is about defeating them. I'm hopeful this isn't going to be a pattern, that it was simply a consequence of this being the first novel in the series and thus had to introduce and explain a lot, especially for folks who haven't read Moon Called and thus are meeting many of the Montana wolves for the first time. There also needed to be time to develop Anna and Charles' relationship. Still, that plus the constant POV switching and backtracking narrative to fill you in on the bits you missed while in the wrong POV made parts of the book drag. Overall though, if you're okay with the content warnings (see below) I give this one a hearty recommend.

The audiobook is narrated by Holter Graham, who also did the novella audiobook, and continues to do a fantastic job. I'm not usually a fan of male narrators for female POVs, but Holter avoids a lot of the really off-putting vocal styles many of his peers employ, and creates really distinct voices for every character that make it fairly easy to always tell who is speaking. This is a DENSE book though, so it was definitely a 1.25x or less listen, as opposed to my usual 1.5x. So beware you might not speed through this one like other books.

Content Warnings