Book Blog Tour: The Hidden Wolf by Sue Brown ~ (ARC Review, Excerpt + Giveaway)
Title: The Hidden Wolf
Series: Sapphire Ranch Wolves – Book Two
Author: Sue Brown
Publisher: Love Lane Books
Cover Artist: Meredith Russell
Length: 32,700 words
Release Date: 22nd May, 2015
Blurb: Sheriff Milo Clarke has met
his mate, Eli Watkins, and now they're conducting a long distance relationship
while Eli runs Cavalry, the security firm protecting Joe and Cal at the
Sapphire Ranch from the hunters.
The long distance loving is hard on all three of them,
Eli, Clarke and Clarke's wolf, who is becoming more restless as Clarke refuses
to shift. When Clarke going to give into the other side of him and how will
Clarke and Eli resolve the distance between their lives? 
Sheriff Milo Clarke leaned against the kitchen
cabinets as he watched Eli Watkins and his team, the Calvary, remove the
remains of Randy Streerson from the kitchen of Sapphire Ranch. He’d offered to
help and been told firmly to stay the hell out of their way as they committed a
felony.
Staying to one side was a damned sensible move.
What used to be Randy Streerson, the head of a group of hunters that pursued
and killed shifters, now covered the kitchen walls, floor, and dripped from the
ceiling after young shifter Callum Pope shot him with one of the hunter’s
bullets.
Cal was a distant shifter relative of Milo’s. His
father had been related to Milo’s mother. Cal’s father and two elder brothers
had been killed by a band of hunters led by the Streerson family. The pack had
splintered in an effort to survive, and Cal had turned up on Sapphire Ranch
after running hundreds of miles to get away from the hunters, only to discover
the owner of the ranch was his mate. A lot had happened in a few days. Eli’s
men took away what remained of the body and now they scrubbed the kitchen,
surprisingly efficient. Milo didn’t have to be a cop to know this wasn’t the
first time the Cavalry had cleaned away evidence that a murder had taken place.
He was stuck between duty and likely survival. On
one hand he’d witnessed the struggle between Cal and Streerson for control of
the gun before Cal had pulled the trigger. On the other…
How the hell would he explain to his deputies
what had just taken place? They would want to know where he’d been hiding for
the past few days, why he’d been lying to them, who the victim—who was no
fucking victim—was, and what the hell was a shifter?
He was a shifter. At least a half-shifter. His
mother had been a werewolf and Milo could change, he just chose not to. Instead
he lived among the humans as a sheriff and hadn’t given in to that side of him
for over five years except for one glorious moment a few days ago. Milo tried
not to think about it even as his wolf grumbled inside.
Milo watched the team—at least he watched Eli.
His whole attention was focused on the dark-haired man. Just watching him made
his mouth dry and his dick hard. From the second Milo had shifted to prove the
existence of werewolves to Eli and his assistant Ross, he’d realized that Eli
was his mate.
Unable to resist, he’d trotted up to Eli and laid
his head on his lap. Tentatively Eli had stroked his head, and Milo leaned into
the caress, wanting Eli to touch him more. Eli filled his wolf senses. He
smelled woodsy with a touch of citrus. He smelled good.
“Good doggy,” Eli had murmured.
Doggy? Milo gave a low growl at the insult,
grinning in wolfy satisfaction as Eli snatched his hand back. He wouldn’t have
hurt him—much.
And Eli had seemed equally drawn to him, finding
it hard to take his eyes off Milo, even as they’d talked strategy with Joe,
Cal’s mate and the owner of Sapphire Ranch.
But they hadn’t gone near each other, hadn’t
touched each other at all beyond that one brief contact. Milo had been relieved
because they had needed to focus their minds, not their dicks, to defeat the
hunters. Relieved—and frustrated beyond belief to have his mate so close and
not be able to touch him.
There was another issue. They hadn’t connected
telepathically.
Milo had thought that happened immediately. But
he was only a half-shifter, with limited shifter abilities in his human form,
and Eli was a human. What would happen if they didn’t connect? Could they walk
away from each other? It would make life so much simpler.
Milo caught Eli frowning at him, and he looked
away, feeling guilty. Eli didn’t need to know. They hadn’t connected. He need
never know. Milo’s wolf howled inside him at the thought of walking away from
his mate, and for once Milo didn’t try to hush him. The thought hurt his human
side just as much. But Milo had spent his whole life hiding his true nature,
and now, through no fault of his own, everything he’d worked to hide was liable
to be exposed. Among humans he hid the fact he was half-shifter. Around
shifters he tried hard to fit in, even though his human side affected his wolf
senses. And with both communities he hid the fact he was gay.
Milo had spent his whole life in hiding and with one
phone call Joe had exposed him to humans—both as shifter and as gay. He wasn’t
fucking ready for it. And didn’t that suck?
*copy provided by author/publisher via Creative Minds in exchange for an honest review*
Mari's Review:
*copy provided by author/publisher via Creative Minds in exchange for an honest review*
This series has to be
read in order and the books in it can’t be read as standalones, and while each
of the books focuses mostly on the main pairing, other people in the books get
their fair share of attention. I asked to review both books, so you get two
reviews instead of one.
The Last Wolf marks
the beginning of a fascinating Paranormal series involving wolf shifters and
their human mates. In that sense alone, it is quite different from other books
in this genre that I’ve read. And it involves a huge conspiracy to end with all
wolf packs, and other shifters, too, although the main focus is on wolves.
Joe Lowther’s life
has turned itself upside down. His father is battling cancer and he had to take
a sabbatical year so he can take care of both his daddy and his ranch. He
notices a wolf in his property and decides to kill it before it causes any harm
to his ranch’s animals. Only things aren’t what they seem and after he shoots
the wolf, he finds a handsome young man that has accelerated healing and with
whom he can somehow communicate telepathically.
Callum Pope has been
running away for days, escaping from some nasty hunters that are trying to
eradicate his kind one pack at a time. He ends up at Sapphire Ranch and the
last thing he expected was to meet his mate there, or that said mate would try
to kill him when confusing him with a real wolf.
Callum is younger and
more innocent than Joe, but he’s stubborn and even if he’s an Omega—the
youngest of his pack—he fights for what he wants.
I loved Joe and
Callum as a couple! They had great chemistry, and I adored seeing more of them
in The Hidden Wolf, too.
I expected the big
reveal of Cal being a shifter and then finding out that they were mates, to be
a bit more of an issue for Joe, but it wasn’t much so, which, considering the
main plotline with the hunters going after Cal and the rest of the pack and then
the inclusion of The Cavalry, leaded by Eli, Joe’s old college roommate and his
team and Milo, the Sheriff/shifter who refuses to shift is not that surprising.
It was an
entertaining book, although at the end we just get a HFN and more questions
that pile up as the plot thickens. Thankfully, I had book 2 already waiting for
me.
The Hidden Wolf is
the continuation of the story, and even if it’s not as action-packed as the
first one, it’s still quite good.
Milo Clarke has been
hiding that he’s a half shifter and gay for far too long. He’s a Sheriff in a
small town in Texas, which isn’t exactly an incentive to come out. But after
meeting Eli on the previous book and finding out he’s his mate, things are
about to change. And change they certainly did.
Eli is Joe’s friend
that we also met on book 1, he’s full Alpha even if he’s a human and I love
that he can definitely hold his own and be all sweet and naughty to Milo at the
same time.
Eli and Milo are
drawn together by the mate pull, but they also are really well suited together.
They are pretty much equals in everything, which makes for an interesting
pairing, never mind that they are very hot together.
I loved that Sue
Brown managed to involve several persons in one scene and not have me all
confused as to whom she was referring to in one part or another and I was
impressed, especially on the second book, that she could have several strong
willed characters and that they could work together as well as they did.
Also adored that
while Eli and Milo are the main pairing, the Author also shows us what Joe and
Callum from the first book have been up to. She doesn’t do this by giving them ‘air
time’, so to speak, but through Eli and Milo’ s eyes. This works especially
well since the main plotline regarding the hunters and the repercussions after
killing one of the heads of that operation start coming to light. I also loved
meeting more of The Cavalry’s members, they are quite interesting and can’t
wait to read more of them in the future as the plot continues to unravel in
book 3, which can’t come soon enough. Can it be Autumn already, pretty please? I
can’t wait to find out what’s going to happen now.
Rating: 4.5 Shifting
Stars.
Sue Brown is owned by her dog and two
children. When she isn't following their orders, she can be found plotting at
her laptop. In fact she hides so she can plot and has gotten expert at ignoring
the orders.
Sue discovered M/M erotica at the
time she woke up to find two men kissing on her favorite television series. The
series was boring; the kissing was not. She may be late to the party, but she's
made up for it since, writing fan fiction until she was brave enough to venture
out into the world of original fiction.
AUTHOR
LINKS
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https://plus.google.com/+SueBrownstories/
Blog:
http://suebrownsstories.blogspot.co.uk/
Website:
http://www.suebrownstories.com/
Email ID: suebrown.stories@gmail.com 
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