"Dead Bang on Perfection"
I was recommended Lora Leigh by writer Kate Angell. She
knows how I like powerful stories that grab the reader and
won't let them go. I have three of the "Breed books" and am
naturally reading them out of order, typical for me. Still,
that is often a good lit test to see if the book can really
stand alone. Though this is fourth in the Breed Series,
this one truly stands alone well. The Feline books that I
have read are super, but Lora Leigh is at TOP FORM with
ELIZABETH'S WOLF. At points in the feline books, while I am
really enjoying them, the romance is eschewed in favor of
breed matings. While it's powerful writing, it loses the
true romance in favor of animal traits. However, with
ELIZABETH'S WOLF, the power of the romance is dead on
target. This is Lora Leigh at sheer perfection. She is so
concentrated, so in tune with her characters, on the power
of a predator finding and protecting his mate. In this case the "scent" comes through letters from a
little girl to a soldier, Dash Sinclair, who has been
injured. No one sends letters to Dash. He is truly a lone
wolf, a man genetically engineered with wolf in his coding.
Unlike the feline breeds, whose traits are more obvious,
his wolf breed traits are recessive. As a man born in a
test tube, he is so utterly alone. When he is injured, his
sight nearly taken from him, his commander sees Dash needs
a lifeline, and offers it when letters from Cassie comes
in. She has picked his name off a list of soldiers who
didn't get mail and began writing Dash. As his commanders
reads the letters, Dash begins to think of Cassie and her
mother Elizabeth as his. It's clear to Dash almost immediately, there are problems
in Cassie's life with her mother. Her mother is sad and
scared. Quickly, Dash needs the letters, needs the woman
and child. He arranges presents for Cassie of the year of
receiving letters. As he is checking out of the hospital,
he learns Cassie and her mother Elizabeth have been killed
in an explosion that destroyed the apartment where they
were living. So the wolf goes on the hunt to kill the
people responsible. He soon gets a letter from Cassie. They
escaped, she has another name and her mother and she are on
the run for their lives once again. So the hunt switches
for Dash, a race to find the child and mother and claim
them before the men hunting them catch up kill Elizabeth
and take the child. We guess the reason early on
(especially so if you have read the other books), but it's
not the plot that pulls you. It's the power of Dash's need
to protect the woman he now claims and her child. Lora Leigh is so powerful with this story. It alone marks
her as a talent to watch. This story is just so emotional,
so vivid that you won't be able to put it down. Few writers
reach this level of craft. So if you haven't read Lora
Leigh, this is the one to start with. Reviewed by DeborahAnne MacGillivray
Posted August 20, 2005
Reviewed by PNR Group Member
Posted November 22, 2006
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She brought him back from death and made him live again.
Dash thought himself alone, a soldier, a fighting machine
and no more.
Elizabeth made him realize he was a man.
Danger surrounds the woman his soul marked as his mate,
death and blood and a treachery that goes beyond even his
worst nightmares. But he will protect her and what she
claims as her own. He was created to kill, trained to do it
efficiently, and only a man bound to her, heart and soul,
will have the strength to save Elizabeth and her prized
possession.
He is a lone wolf. A man alone. No pack, no family, no one
to call his own until one single, innocent letter awoke
Elizabeth's wolf.
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