Heart of the Wolf: To win her, he must fight to the death... [Mass Market Paperback]

Terry Spear (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2008

"You will be turning pages well into the night."
-Sandy Blair, author of A Highlander For Christmas

"A fast-paced, sexy read with lots of twists and turns! A fascinating paranormal world with a hot hero, a smart heroine and dark villains."
-Nicole North, author of Devil in a Kilt

Their forbidden love may get them both killed.

Bella is a red werewolf, sole survivor of the fire that killed her entire pack.

Devlyn is a beta male werewolf in a pack of grays.

Forced to flee her adopted gray pack when the alpha male becomes a vicious threat, she struggles to live as a lone wolf, until Devlyn, the gray male who rescued her as a pup, comes to bring her home.

When a local red werewolf goes on a killing spree, Bella and Devlyn must flee the murderer, the police and their vengeful pack leader. With the full moon rising, and her heat upon her, Bella can't resist the pull to her destined mate, even if means Devlyn will have to face the wicked alpha male in a fight to the death...

A sizzling paranormal romance based on extensive research on how wolves live and behave in the wild, creating a fascinating world of nature and fantasy.

"Warm and sexy; Terry Spear is a great new voice in the paranormal romance genre."
-Cathy Clamp, USA Today bestselling author (20080304)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Red werewolf Bella flees her adoptive pack of gray werewolves when the alpha male Volan tries forcibly to claim her as his mate. Her real love, beta male Devlyn, has been out of her life for years, but comes after her when she finds herself accidentally captured by humans. Bella becomes convinced that Devlyn only wants to return her to Volan, but soon realizes that Devlyn loves her as much as she loves him, and is willing to fight Volan to the death to claim her. That problem pales, however, as a pack of red werewolves takes to killing human females in a crazed quest to claim Bella for their own. Bella and Devlyn must defeat the rogue wolves before Devlyn's final confrontation with Volan. The vulpine couple's chemistry crackles off the page, but the real strength of the book lies in Spear's depiction of pack power dynamics, as well as in the details of human-wolf interaction. His wolf world feels at once palpable and even plausible. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

A solidly crafted werewolf story, this tale centers on pack problems in a refreshingly straightforward way. The characters are well drawn and believable, which makes the contemporary plotline of love and life among the lupus garou seem, well, realistic.
(The Romantic Times 20080219)

The vulpine couple's chemistry crackles off the page, but the real strength of the book lies in Spear's depiction of pack power dynamics, as well as in the details of human?wolf interaction. His wolf world feels at once palpable and even plausible. (Publishers Weekly 20080709)

I highly recommend this book for anyone who loves a good paranormal, romantic suspense, and shape shifter story!

(Stephanie Fallen Angel Reviews )

The characters were so well developed and the writing so superior that it felt real to me, my reactions were as if I was a part of the story. (The Romance Studio )

Ms. Spear adds enough creative twists to grab your attention and keep you reading. (Shirley Bitten By Books )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca (April 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1402211570
• ISBN-13: 978-1402211577
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #110,515 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #63 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > British > General

More About the Author

Award-winning author and creator of award-winning teddy bears who have found homes all over the world including Australia, Switzerland, China, and Russia, and a retired officer of the US Army Reserves, I love to plant trees and flowers and if I could, I'd turn all the deserts green. Time travels are my favorite read, although I love to read most anything, and the Bourne series, Romancing the Stone, Sixth Sense, Legend, The Princess Bride, Stardust, Inkheart, LOTR, and tons of other movies are my favorites.

I love to research, to make urban fantasy worlds real, to bring a little of the paranormal into our world. Even in "Winning the Highlander's Heart" the heroine feels she is cursed and she has second sight. But I try to do it in a way that feels real, and not fantasized. :) Currently, I'm working on the first of the new jaguar shifter series, but still am working on wolf book number 11, 12 and 13! So more hunky wolves to come! Dreaming of the Wolf was just released! Book 8 in the series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Nice try but no dice; Apathy is the only emotion I have for this read., March 26, 2009

By 

Mrs. Baumann - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Heart of the Wolf: To win her, he must fight to the death... (Mass Market Paperback)

Plot Summary: It goes against my feminist nature to have a heroine who can only protect her man by staying away from him forever, but Bella's hands are tied in this patriarchal wolf world. She flees her own pack when the alpha tries to repeatedly rape her when she was still a juvenile (in the 1850s). Her true love, Devlyn, was sure to be the loser in a fight against Volan, so Bella moved to Portland, Oregon. Cut to the present, and Bella's undercover existence is blown when she's accidentally captured in wolf form by some zoo-loving, ignorant do-gooders. Horny wolves come out of the woodwork, including Devlyn, Volan, and psychotic lonely `reds' from the local pack.

It's hard for me to stir up any emotions for this book. I don't love it, I don't hate it, I just don't care all that much. I know one thing for certain -- I don't ever want to be a female wolf in this paranormal world. Bella has zero control over the choice of her mate, and anyone who can rip out Devlyn's throat can claim her as his personal trophy wife. The only way she can take a stand is to run away, which explains her 150-year self-imposed exile from her own pack.

It was almost comical how many wolves wanted a piece of Bella. It's like she was the only drop of water in the desert. The sex scenes with Devlyn were spicy at the start, but after a while it actually felt monotonous. When the couple started tracking down the mysterious killer within the local `red' wolf pack, I started speed reading until I reached the big fight scenes at the end. Mercifully, the fights were short and I finished the book. Heck, I'm bored just writing this review. It's past time to move on. I can't recommend this one unless you are rabid to read anything containing werewolves.

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good story, but..., May 19, 2008

By 

Carrie A. Baumbach - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Heart of the Wolf: To win her, he must fight to the death... (Mass Market Paperback)

I loved the storyline of Heart of the Wolf. I loved the characters.

I didn't love how it was written. The same phrases are repeated constantly, and the fight scenes are short and have a severe lack of description.

I only read all the way through because I wanted to see how things between Bella and Devlyn turned out, but I can honestly say this book has literally put me to sleep more than once.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Thank God I didn't pay money for this., April 29, 2008

By 

Deidre Huesmann (Bremerton, WA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Heart of the Wolf: To win her, he must fight to the death... (Mass Market Paperback)

The first chapter set up such potential. We're introduced to Bella and Devlyn, our main characters, and the tension between them and their pack leader, Volan. In hopes of saving Devlyn's life, Bella abandons the pack that took her in and she starts a lone wolf life in Oregon.

The author sets up a murder mystery, but everything is predictable. The villains are easy to spot. There are absolutely no surprises around the flimsy corners Spear sets up. There isn't even any tension in the wolf fights--and does she have any idea how injuries work? Tearing out a throat doesn't cause instant death; it would be bloody and gruesome with a lot of twitching as the wolf bleeds out.

Bella is very whiny and unsympathetic, with absolutely no faith in the man she claims to love. And Devlyn is just atrocious. Any man who coos those nicknames at a woman isn't the type to be potential leader for ANYTHING, much less a pack of wolves.

I'd like to give her props for some originality--most don't consider wolf breeding when werewolves have kids, so the triplets and quadruplets were a nice touch--but it just falls flat in the bad story-telling, terrible dialogue, and awful characters.

Why bother with the review, then? Because I could actually finish the novel. Bad as it was, it was more like a train wreck, so it kept my attention with how Just Plain Awful this novel turned out to be.