Black Rook by Kelly Meade
This is my first time reading anything by Kelly Meade. I've been reading a lot of PNR lately and was excited to start this new series, Cornerstone Trilogy. The series is about the McQueen brothers; Rook, Bishop and Knight. I like the chess reference there. Black Rook is about, well, Rook, the youngest brother. Rook is a black wolf. A black wolf born is automatically the next Alpha. The only thing is, Rook is the youngest of the three. Bishop is the oldest but is a Gray wolf and won't automatically be Alpha even though he possesses the traits of one.
Brynn is a Magus who's powers are low level. She is spurned by her father because she's not as powerful as he is. Brynn has a vision of her father's murder and decides to find the killer before it happens. Brynn decides to go undercover to stop her father's murderer. Brynn finds herself in the middle of war between the wolves, magus and vampires.
Black Rook started off strong but for me, it fizzled from the middle all the way to the end. I normally don't have issues with characters being in their 20s in PNR/UF but I did in this one. Brynn and Rook are so young! I felt like I was reading a YA PNR. There was one sex scene and that was it. Barely any harsh language. This book was PG-13. I expect more from my PNR especially my wolves.
I was bored during most of it and skimmed a lot. It took a long time for things to come together. Black Rook could have been 100 pages left and I would have been happy.
Brynn and Rook were okay characters but nothing about them stood out and made me take notice. I was more interested in the secondary characters.
Since this is a trilogy, I will be reading the next book. Plus the brothers are older and more mature so I'm hoping there will be less steam and more fire!