Tumperkin’s Take:
Alpha & Omega/ Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs
Although Alpha & Omega and Cry Wolf are separate works, I’m going to review them together. A&O, a novella, introduces the reader to Charles and Anna, the eponymous Alpha and Omega respectively. CW picks up where A&O left off and takes us to a point where Charles and Anna commit to one another as mates.
My reading experience of these two books was somewhat unsettled by the fact that I read CW first, then A&O (my fault) which was rather like starting at chapter 4, reading to the end then going back and reading chapters 1 to 3. The reason for this was that I decided to read this book after reading Janine’s comments regarding this series on Dear Author. However, I didn’t pick up one bit of crucial information which was that the first bit of the story was in a separate novella.
Although I don’t read a lot of paranormal romance, a number of werewolf books have found their way into my hands over the years and as it happens, I find the werewolf the most appealing of the kitchen-or-garden-variety-paranormal-creatures out there. I like the conceit of there being a pack and rules of behaviour that the characters have to negotiate their way round. I like the animalistic stuff, both the horror aspect and the liberation-of-nature aspect. One aspect I’m less keen on (though this is by no means limited to werewolves) is the fated mates trope. The lack of free will can (doesn’t always, but can) detract from the romance for me.
I can also get impatient with external/non-romance plots. Undoubtedly that is because I am first and foremost a romance reader. So whilst some readers may primarily appreciate the urban fantasy aspects of a book like this and find the romance of subsidiary appeal, for me, the non-romance aspects are essentially setting, against which I want to see the romance play out.
The story: Charles is the son of The Marrock, the leader of all werewolves a.k.a. Bran. Charles is Bran’s enforcer, a strong alpha werewolf who essentially deputises for his father. In A&O, Charles is sent to Chicago to investigate irregularities in Anna’s pack, following a call Anna made to Bran in defiance of her own Alpha, Leo. Charles discovers that not only was Anna changed against her will, in defiance of werewolf laws, but that she has been brutally abused by her pack – and she is not the only one.
Anna believes herself to be a submissive wolf, ‘the lowest of the low’ as she describes herself. But in fact Charles recognises her as an Omega, a wolf that is outside the normal pack structure and hence does not feel compelled either to fight or obey dominant wolves. Instead, her presence has a calming effect on the whole pack. Anna’s ignorance about her true nature and her brutalisation at the hands of her pack have, however, convinced her that she is submissive and she acts towards Charles accordingly. Charles recognises that Anna is his mate and tells her, letting her know that he wants to court her.
A&O is a pretty short novella, and the story moves along swiftly towards a final showdown with Anna’s pack during which Charles is wounded with slow-to-heal silver bullets. At the end of A&O, 36 hours after their first meeting, Anna agrees to go back to Montana with Charles. CW picks up the story at that immediate point. Coming into the story at this point as a new reader, I was immediately frustrated. I was unaware of the existence of the A&O novella but quickly realised that a crucial part of Charles and Anna’s story was missing. At first I wondered if this was going to be told in flashback until I finally visited Janine’s post again and discovered A&O. By that time, however, I was well into CW and ended up finishing it before A&O arrived.
The first few chapters of CW referred back to the events of A&O a fair amount so I was aware of the salient facts, but not the emotional journey the characters had been on. This resulted in a fair bit of ‘had’-toned exposition at the outset that gave the story a static feel for me initially. However, about a quarter of the way in, this stopped, and the story got going properly. On the one hand, this meant that I could understand where the characters were coming from despite not having read A&O; on the other hand it struck me as unsatisfactory even if I had read A&O first. To me, A&O and CW read like one book that had been artificially separated.
At the start of CW, Anna and Charles head back to Montana. We see their first hours together as a couple and get a sense of two people who are strongly drawn to one another but whose natures and experiences make it difficult for them to overcome their barriers. Anna has been abused and believes she hates sex. Charles has cultivated a serious, silent persona and doesn’t get close to anyone because he knows he may one day have to take action against them. He is used to going it alone and shutting others out.
Very soon after their arrival, Bran sends Charles on another mission, into the mountains of Montana in winter after what Bran thinks is a rogue werewolf killing hikers. When Anna insists on accompanying the still-wounded Charles, Bran encourages her. The rest of the novel is taken up with Charles and Anna’s investigation into the murders and what they find in the mountains. In the midst of that, they become closer and the barriers begin to come down between them. The novel closes with them marrying, albeit their relationship is still in its early days (and I gather, also the subject of the next book).
The external plots of both A&O and CW are decent enough. However, as I said, I tend to concentrate on the romance arc. This is one of the reasons I’m reviewing A&O and CW together – whilst there are two distinct external plots, there is a single romance arc.
I liked Charles a great deal. He is strong and dominant without being overbearing. He is kind too but because his kindness is hidden behind an cold mask, it is easily missed. There are frequent references to his being impassive and difficult to read and we see other characters reacting to him quite negatively at times. But Anna seems to understand him very well and not in a way that came across as facile.
Anna is a very raw character. She’s been badly treated and she needs just what Charles is offering. I quite liked the fact that whilst Anna’s natural character is clearly not submissive and subdued, she has been beaten down by her experiences. One of my pet peeves is characters who don’t seem to be affected by bad experiences, as though it’s somehow weak to react in a natural manner to such things. Briggs lets us see Anna (very gradually) build up her confidence and I had a smile on my face at the end of CW when she and Charles are playing together as wolves in the snow.
Which brings me to the fated mates thing. This is never going to be a favourite trope for me. Having said that, it worked fairly well for me in this book. Charles and Anna did feel right for each other. He was like a harbour for her, strong against the big bad world; and she was like the one person capable of really understanding him, partly because of her omega nature which didn’t react in the usual way to such a dominant wolf. What I missed though – and what I look for in my romance reading – is that sense you get from the characters about why they have fallen for this particular person. And that wasn’t something I got a strong sense of A&O/CW. There are brief physical descriptions of the characters in A&O (though, frustratingly, not so much in CW) – Anna has ‘whisky-coloured’ curls and is ‘pretty’; Charles has long black hair and native-American features – but there is no sense of them taking delight in each other’s person, and I missed that. I suppose the answer to that might be that it’s not necessary because Charles and Anna’s love goes deeper than the merely physical, but given that the mate bond seems to arise without consideration of physical or spiritual issues, that’s not an answer that fully satisfies me.
Briggs’ prose I found rather somewhat understated. As I was reading, I was slightly disappointed by that. However, later, when I reflected on it more, I came to think two things. The first was that the dominant character in CW is Charles, and the flattish prose seemed to suit his silent, monosyllabic character. The second thing was that I wonder if Briggs is one of those writers for whom the prose is a pure vehicle for the story. I’ve found a few other authors’ prose to be like this – straight and almost journalistic in its effectiveness. It can be slightly underwhelming as you read but then you realise that it’s delivering the story effectively.
All in all, I didn’t love this book but I did like it. It’s a competent, enjoyable read that strangely grew on me more with hindsight. And I liked the characters. In the end though, I craved more romance and that’s more a question of reader preference than a criticism of the book itself.
Jessica’s Rejoinder:
I agree with pretty much all that Tumperkin says. Ironically, I downloaded the novella without realizing it was not the novel we had agreed to read. So quite by accident, I read them in the proper order! I did enjoy them, but I think my personal tastes run to other kinds of stories. I’ll add a few observations:
1. It is a matter of personal taste that I tend not to like werewolf romances, or actually any romances which utilize the “two natured” trope, be it demons, shapeshifters, or groundhogs. It’s just very hard to do this well. In this book, much like the daemons in Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, or Rhage, the dragon-vamp in J.R. Ward’s Lover Eternal, the wolf is really “other”, and not just an aspect of the human self. The characters refer to their wolves in the third person, or possessive, and seem to have trouble not only controlling their wolves, but sussing out what their wolves are “thinking” and feeling. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out things, like, why is the wolf mind still present when the wolf body is gone? And why does Anna think like human Anna when she is in wolf form (shouldn’t those pages be a series of grunts and barks?). Nevertheless, the dual identity creates a very concrete metaphysically real kind of internal conflict with the…
2. Mating concept, because two wolves can recognize each other as mates without their human counterparts agreeing. Like Tumperkin said, we all hate it when “mating” takes the place of “relationship”, and that did not happen here. I think its function in the paranormal universe is similiar to functions in many other romance genres: it keeps the couple together long enough to become a couple. In that sense, it is like an arranged marriage, or a wounded h/h who has to stay at the h/h’s house, or, in contemps, any arrangement that has them pushed together for a long period. The mating concept also allows authors to explain and explore intense sexual attraction between the h/h’s at a very early point in the relationship.
3. Charles was grievously injured by silver bullets in the novella and continued to be in a weakened state throughout the novel. I discovered that I find a wounded hero deeply unsettling and stress inducing. It really works for me to ramp up the suspense.
4. From a feminist point of view, Anna’s status as Omega is almost like an androgynous ideal. In the heydey of 1970s feminism, some folks thought we should do away with the two genders and adopt what came to be called mono-androgyny, one type of gender that blended the best of both. All of this has gone by the boards, historically, but I liked it that Anna was strong in a uniquely feminine way. I also liked it that Charles was not the Alpha. It is unusual to have a hero who is not the top dog.
5. I agree totally about the writing, which felt sort of “flat” or monotone to me, and reminds me of Anne Stuart and, in a way, some books by Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb. I love T’s observation about how it might function for a certain kind of writer.
6. The Native American aspect of Charles’ identity puzzled me: he got it from his mother, who was also a werewolf and a witch. So… what, if any, is the relationship between being a werewolf and being Native American? Or, for that matter being a witch?
7. I will say, that on paper it looks like so many of the things we love to hate or hate to love about paranormals are here — mating, possessiveness, the heroine rising like a phoenix from the ashes of sexual abuse, etc. — but they felt very fresh to me as Briggs wrote them. That was a major achievement, I thought.
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#1 by Niveau on October 1, 2009 - 2:51 am
I agree about the writing. I found it almost detached, in a way. Which I can understand in a book written in a third-person POV, but at the same time, just felt off. It did match Charles’ personality to some degree, but it made it hard for me to get a fix on Anna. I think that’s just what Briggs’ prose is like, because her Mercy Thompson series is written in the first person, yet still has that detached feeling at times. That feeling does fit Mercy’s personality, but it seems to me that’s more about Briggs writing a character whose personality matches her prose, and not making her prose match her character.
#2 by Anida Adler on October 1, 2009 - 4:52 am
I’m so glad to hear that there are other readers who sometimes feel a bit uneasy about some aspects of paranormal romance. I suppose in some ways I just think too much and live myself into a situation too intensely, but some stuff is simply not going to be so hot if it really happened to you.
#3 by Aoife on October 1, 2009 - 8:00 am
“Fated mates” doesn’t work for me as a general rule, but the whole Anna/Charles dynamic strikes me as being a little different from the same old-same old. In many ways it is almost as if there are four main characters rather than two: Charles, Brother Wolf, Anna, and Anna’s wolf. The fact that the only way Anna can deal with the physical aspects of her relationship with Charles is by allowing her wolf to dominate during sex emphasizes how horrendous her experiences were in her previous pack, while still offering a path towards healing. In general, I have a hard time with books where either the hero or heroine have been sexually brutalized because it’s hard to get the balance right between omg-so-depressing-and-hopeless, and trivializing what has happened. For me, AO, Cry Wolf, and Hunting Ground hit a pretty good balance that shows a believable progression (for fiction, anyway) in healing, and Anna’s reclaiming of her sexuality and her true personality.
I agree that Brigg’s writing is on the spare side. As a reader sometimes this works for me, and sometimes it doesn’t. In the case of CW, it allowed me a little emotional distance. I would be very interested in hearing what both of you think about Hunting Ground, because I felt the tone was a little different, and that matched the greater emotional intimacy in that story.
Jessica, Charles mother was the daughter of a shaman and a person of power before Bran turned her (IIRC Bran found her dying and turned her to save her life). Charles apparently has a connection to the spirit world because he inherited some of his mothers powers, not because of he’s a werewolf. It’s yet another thing that sets him a little outside the pack structure, which is another theme that Briggs seems to be exploring. It will be interesting to see where she goes with this.
Thanks for a great review, Tumperkin and Jessica.
#4 by Victoria Janssen on October 1, 2009 - 8:40 am
Thanks! I’ve enjoyed several of Briggs’ books, but hadn’t looked at this one yet, and it sounds like I would like it. Will make sure to read the novella first, though. I encountered a similar issue with Marjorie Liu’s most recent fantasy series, which started in a novella. Even though I’d READ the novella first, the first novel felt slow to start.
Crystal Jordan wrote a neat guest post for me on using the mating bond in plots: http://victoriajanssen.blogspot.com/2009/04/crystal-jordan-guest-post-how-to-make.html
Another writer who does good work with the “mate bond” is Eileen Wilks in her series. It helps that the main couple from the first book continues through the series, sometimes with a larger role, sometimes with a smaller role, and we see the progress of their relationship.
#5 by Tumperkin on October 1, 2009 - 2:00 pm
Jessica – Nora Roberts was precisely who I had in mind. I liked your observation too about the two-natured aspect which I hadn’t thought about much before.
Niveau – I wondered if the Mercy Thomson might have a different tone. From what you’re saying it has a similar feel?
Anida – one of the other aspects of paranormals I have previously blogged about my discomfort with the idea of immortality.
Aoife – your comment about there being 4 characters here echoes Jessica’s two-natured point and wasn’t something I’d focussed on when reading – particularly since we don’t really see any action from wolf-POV as such. Interesting.
Victoria – I’m not hugely keen on the kick-off novella unless it is genuinely separate. Presumably the idea is that if publishers use the big name, like Briggs, they can get reader exposure to the less well-known names that tend to share the anthology (although it is not invariably the case).
#6 by Aoife on October 1, 2009 - 7:46 pm
I think I was re-analyzing some of the aspects of AO and CW based on how the characters are developing in Hunting Ground. In HG it becomes clear that Brother Wolf, Charles’ werewolf side, really is a character in his own right, distinct and separate from Charles. Anna’s wolf is less defined, but I do truly think that the direction Briggs is going is different from the usual beast/human duality presented in most UF or paranormals. Like you, I hadn’t focussed on that when I originally read the novella and CW, but it is interesting to revisit the dynamic in light of later developments.
#7 by Kaetrin on October 1, 2009 - 8:34 pm
I read Alpha and Omega and then Cry Wolf straight after. I thought A&O worked well as a novella but that CW would have been strange if one hadn’t read A&O – there’s so much backstory missing.
Like you Tumperkin, I felt it was a little light on on the romance aspect of the story – a little more would have satisfied me much better. Although I hear Hunting Ground (which I have but have not yet read) is better with this.
I do like the idea of a series of stories where the relationships of the wolves and the people are developed.
I did like the way that the humans had to work out their relationship – even though the wolves had bonded that didn’t mean that the humans would. The dynamic between the Marrock and his partner is quite different too -which I thought was a really interesting take on the trope.
I didn’t gush about this series but I did enjoy them. I think if Hunting Ground lives up to its promise of being a bit more “romance-y” I’ll be a happy camper.
#8 by Janet W on October 1, 2009 - 8:37 pm
It sounds like the psychological bridge for me, from Gaffney’s Wild at Heart, to Cry Wolf, is a little too daunting. Even when it’s La Nora, I usually speed read through the more mystical/”other”*worldly parts.
And yet I love high fantasy (Susan Cooper, Alan Garner) … can this reader be saved? Is there an interim book you might recommend?
#9 by Niveau on October 2, 2009 - 4:22 am
First off, I have to agree with Aoife about the direction in which Briggs is headed. The way that Charles deals with his wolf is different from any other UF or paranormal I’ve read, which is a refreshing change. I don’t agree about the four characters, though. Anna’s wolf is so undefined, at least compared to Charles’, that I don’t think she’s a main character at all. I can’t even see her as a secondary character. To me, she’s purely background.
About Mercy Thompson having a similar feel: yes and no. Technically, yes. I often encountered that feeling of detachment in the Mercy novels. However, that feeling often seems like a part of Mercy’s personality and, as such, isn’t as off-putting as it is in Alpha and Omega. It can still be annoying, but it’s easier to bear. It’s also extrememly important in the way the climax of the third book is narrated. Again, I think this is mainly Briggs creating characters and situations to match her style.
#10 by Jessica on October 2, 2009 - 6:27 am
I have recently enjoyed fantasy/romances from Lois McMaster Bujold and Shannon Shinn. They might work!
#11 by Janine on October 2, 2009 - 4:03 pm
I have so much to say about these works that I’m afraid to begin posting! I’m glad you read and enjoyed them and sorry you didn’t love them as much as I did (I am also sorry, Tumperkin, that I didn’t do a better job of conveying that the series begins with the novella. I think it doesn’t help that the publisher has labeled Cry Wolf as “Alpha and Omega book one” when it is really the second story in the series).
I have to say though that I’ve probably heard from more grateful readers as a result of that review than for any other review I’ve done, except perhaps the one I did of Ginn Hale’s Wicked Gentlemen. Not everyone loves “Alpha and Omega” and Cry Wolf, but the people who love them, really, really adore Anna and Charles.
With regard to the romance quotient, I thought the “Alpha and Omega” story was a pure romance cloaked in a story about pack dynamics. Cry Wolf has more urban fantasy in it, but “Alpha and Omega,” which is the one I’ve read seven or so times (and some of the readers who posted at DA have read many more times than that), seemed like the story of a courtship that was both tense and dizzying, in the way that to me, the best romances are.
I love, above all, the characters of Anna and Charles.
I love watching Anna’s evolution, her emergence from fear into finding her courage. She really comes into her strength in a big way in Hunting Ground, which makes the climax of that book very satisfying.
I love Charles, the way he is isolated by his role as his father’s executioner. I love that he has such a sensitive soul and yet time and time again, he has to kill. I love that he tries to protect Anna from the ferociousness that is part of his nature, from the nature of wolves, and yet he can’t, not really. It’s too late to protect her from the worst of it, so he has to face that flaw in his world, that shortcoming in his ability to protect.
I love the way Anna struggles, in Cry Wolf, to be okay with being a wolf, something she never chose and that was forced on her.
Most of all, I love (to paraphrase something Robin says) the tenderness with which Briggs views and lets us view her characters. There is such empathy and compassion on the part of the author, such awareness of the characters’ vulnerabilities — I can’t articulate it better than that.
And yet, for all that, Briggs doesn’t spare her characters from heartaches or moral dilemmas. She doesn’t pave their way or make life easy for them.
I also love the way the fantasy aspects of the story function as a metaphor. For example, when Anna, a rape survivor, calls on the spirit of her wolf to take over when she has sex with Charles, so that Anna’s consciousness is no longer fully present for that, it’s a great metaphor for the way some people who are raped or sexually abused dissociate during sex so that they won’t have to bear the painful feelings it brings up.
And I think the wolf aspect of many of the characters are also a metaphor for the wolf-eat-wolf nature of our own world, for the fact that we all have the capacity for violence. Briggs recognizes that like her characters, many of us are sensitive people in an insensitive world, a world that rewards competition and sometimes even ruthlessness, a world with brutality as well as beauty, war as well as warmth.
There is more I could say but I will stop here for now.
#12 by Tumperkin on October 3, 2009 - 4:56 am
Janine – you make a great case. I agree about the characters of Charles and Anna – and I think you’ll have seen that my comments about them in my review chime with yours. I found Charles in particular an extremely an attractive (and unusual) character and still find the *why* of that quite elusive. It’s not as if there’s a shortage of strong silent heroes in romance and generally, they’re not favourites of mine. I think it’s something to do with Charles zen-like qualities – but now that I type that, it’s far too banal to express what I felt about Charles.
You’ll also note that I talk about enjoying the book more ‘with hindsight’. It’s difficult to express what I mean by this. When I got to the end of CW, I was somewhat underwhelmed yet intensely curious to read A&O. And after both of them, I found myself thinking a lot about the character after reading.
I’ve thought more, too, about the comments I made about missing out on that sense of delight the H/H feel for one another in my favourite romances. On reflection, I think what I was trying to say was that Charles and Anna don’t really *fall in love*. It’s more a case of discovering and coming to terms with a bond/love that is there from their very first encounter. And I think that in a way, that is a different kind of romance (maybe even, arguably, not a romance) from the falling in love sort of story. I think I missed the falling in love elements.
#13 by Janine on October 3, 2009 - 9:31 am
Tumperkin,
I hear what you are saying. But for me these stories were sooooo romantic. So I guess it would help if you clarified what you mean by “the falling in love elements.” I didn’t feel that just because Charles and Anna’s wolves chose each other meant that Anna and Charles had chosen each other.
To me “Alpha and Omega” was all about the scary aspect of falling in love. I find falling in love frightening in real life, because one doesn’t know the other person well yet in the falling in love stage of relationships, and yet that person has become so important to me, so much the center of my world. Should I trust them? Should I trust my feelings for them? Where do these sudden, powerful feelings come from? Will they ever go away? Do I want them to go away? Do I want this other person to go away, or will I feel like dying if they ever leave me?
For me, that is what falling in love feels like, and that conflict between fear and desire is something few romance novels capture really well. “Alpha and Omega” especially, but Cry Wolf as well, captured that very powerfully.
#14 by Janine on October 3, 2009 - 10:03 am
To comment on some of the things that have been mentioned upthread:
Re. Briggs’ writing style. I actually quite like it. I think her matter-of-fact delivery helps to ground the fantastical elements of the story in realism, so that my experiences of the fantasy feels authentic, unlike in something like Ward’s BDB books where everything feels over the top, like the reading equivalent of a videogame. When I read Briggs I feel like these people could exist in my world — that along with everyday life details like Anna’s empty refrigerator and Charles’ first aid kit with the pink bandages, Briggs’ simple writing style makes me believe in the characters’ ability to turn into wolves.
Sometimes the simplicity of her writing delivers a real gut punch, too, like in some of the sections that I quoted from in my DA review. Even though I often love more lush writing styles, I feel that the spareness and clarity of Briggs’ writing serves these stories really well.
Re. the fated mates concept and the dual nature of the characters. For me this all depends on the execution. One of my favorite romantic fantasy books is Anne McCaffrey’s first Pern book, Dragonflight, where the characters are telepathically linked to dragons who are both other and reflections of the subconscious self.
I feel that something similar is going on with this book. Brother Wolf, Charles’ wolf aspect, feels like a separate character whose feelings conflict with Charles’s at times, such as for example, at the very beginning of “Alpha and Omega” when the wolf is determined to make Anna his mate and Charles wants to wait a little longer to get to know her before deciding if he should court her.
OTOH, with Anna’s wolf, I would argue that she is an aspect of Anna — Anna’s defense mechanism, and the part of Anna that bore the brunt of the abuse so that the rest of Anna wouldn’t have to. I love how this mirrors the way some people deal with abuse in real life. It’s almost like Anna has dissociative identity disorder, and has created another part of herself that can withstand anything, so that she herself won’t have to bear this level of pain.
I really agree with Aoife BTW that these books do a terrific job of showing the healing progress in a way that is not too depressing but also doesn’t trivialize what Anna went through.
With regard to the Mercy Thompson books, I can only speak to Moon Called, but it is written in first person, so the tone is different IMO. I prefer the Charles and Anna series because we get the hero’s POV as well here.
As for Hunting Ground, it didn’t feel more romantic than “Alpha and Omega” or Cry Wolf to me. I do love the way Anna really comes into her own in the book though.
#15 by Sherry Thomas on October 3, 2009 - 2:15 pm
A&O is another notable instance where Janine’s and my tastes diverged, instead of converged.
#16 by Tumperkin on October 3, 2009 - 2:39 pm
Janine – my falling in love elements- amongst other things – include what I mentioned in my review: the sense of intoxication/ delight in the other’s physicality. I felt the lack of that here. I recognise that for some it may be *more* romantic for love to be felt irrespective of that. But for me, I like physical and spiritual love to go hand in hand. The common sin of romances is to major on the physical love and to neglect the other side, leaving the reader with the feeling that here is nothing more than a lustful obsession that will burn out. I’ve also read romances (considerably fewer and can’t readily think of an example) where the love is a pure – almost chivalric – thing that feels sexless. CW didn’t feel like either of these, but like something else. Like Charles and Anna were immediately ‘inside’ a mature relationship with an already established bond and sexual connection. So it felt deep and real, but not new to me.
#17 by Janine on October 3, 2009 - 3:37 pm
Ah well Sherry, you can’t have perfect taste every time.
Tumperkin – I see what you are saying, but I feel that given that Anna was raped by her pack members on multiple occasions, the kind of delight in each other’s bodies that people take when they are falling in love would be very difficult to pull off in a story like “Alpha and Omega.” I expect it will happen eventually, when Anna is finally able to make love to Charles with her consciousness in place, something that they begin to work on in Hunting Ground.
I thought the one kiss that they shared in “Alpha and Omega” when Charles prowls around Anna and says “I promise you will enjoy sex with me,” was sooooo sexy, more so than a lot of love scenes in other books. So I think when he delivers on that promise, we will get that, but until then, sex=danger for Anna, and while she has to bring in the wolf to cope with that, it just wouldn’t fit the story to have them delight in each other’s physicality. And I am really glad Briggs is taking her time with that.
What I loved about “Alpha and Omega” perhaps most of all was the way it captured the stomach-dropping aspect of falling in love. The way it’s a real roller coaster ride, that you just don’t know from one moment to the next, one day to the next, how you will feel and what you will experience. The way your mind is suddenly and completely taken over by thoughts of someone who just a few days ago you didn’t know existed. And I think how scary that is.
Falling in love, for me, is a lot about a conflict between fear and desire. Some of my favorite romances, books like Gaffney’s To Have and to Hold or Kinsale’s The Shadow and the Star, capture that scary aspect so well, the reason we call it falling in love. The way it feels like a freefall. But most romances completely neglect it, and for me, that’s a big thing to miss, probably as much as the physical aspect is for you. Briggs remembers how out of their depths people feel when they are in love. I think that’s a big part of why I find this series so powerfully romantic.