Whats Hot? Books.

Pack of Lies (Red Ridge Pack #1) by Sara Dailey & Staci Weber. 

Title: Pack of Lies (Red Ridge Pack #1)
Author: Sara Dailey
Genre: Young Adult
Publisher: Boroughs Publishing Group
Publication Date: 8th April 2012
Goodreads Summary: The last thing Allison Wright ever expected when she moved to Red Ridge, New Mexico was to come muzzle to muzzle with the wolf of her dreams.

Seventeen-year-old Allison Wright is convinced she’s losing her mind. Uncontrollable mood swings, hot flashes, and the urge to punch anyone who gets in her way are suddenly becoming everyday occurrences. Before her erratic behavior gets out of hand, Allison’s mother finally comes clean about her dark secret. Mom is a werewolf, and soon Allison and her brother Aiden will suffer the same fate. When Allison reaches her breaking point, the family leaves their life in Texas to move to Red Ridge, New Mexico where they rejoin the pack that Allison’s mother left behind almost 20 years ago.

Unfortunately, not everyone in Red Ridge is thrilled about Allison’s arrival, especially when she attracts the attention of the very handsome, very taken, soon-to-be alpha, Cade Walker. Little does Allison know, her mere presence is causing a rift in a once unified pack. Not only has Cade been forbidden from being with Allison by his father, the pack’s alpha, Cade’s girlfriend, Kendall Stuart, will stop at nothing to get Allison out of the picture. Well on her way to becoming the next alpha’s mate, Kendall expects to rule the pack by Cade’s side even if it means teaming up with a rogue werewolf with an agenda of his own. Determined to get rid of Allison permanently, when Kendall and the rogue join forces, all hell breaks loose and no one in the pack is safe, especially not Cade and his true mate.

{ Review }

Werewolf books are not my favourite but for some reason this one caught my interest. Pack of Lies is about a brother and sister who start experiencing strange changes in their bodies. When Alli starts getting into trouble at school, their mother decides to tell them why their emotions are all over the place: they are teenage werewolves. Suffice to say, it's not an easy situation to be in so the parents decide to move the family away from Houston and back to the wolf pack they deserted years and years ago. For Alli this is a welcome change because she's lost all her friends in Houston to jealousy and she's hoping her new were-friends will accept her. However, there are some complications, namely Cade, soon to be alpha who already has a girlfriend, Kendall, a class-A bitch who won't let newcomer Alli come between her and the title of alpha-female.

I'm not really sure why it's called Pack of Lies because there wasn't that much emphasis on lying in my opinion, though I do like the pun on the word 'pack'. Pack of Lies is written from the point of view of Alli, Kendall and Cade, but mostly Alli. Each of them is interesting in different ways but personally I found Kendall's to be the most interesting because you get a look into her home life and Cade and Alli's relationship from a distance. She might be a pain in the arse but you do feel some sense of sympathy for her because it's clear her mother has influenced her to be the way she is.

The best way for me to describe my feelings as I went through this book would be to compare them to a heart rate monitor you find in hospitals. It's going up and down and up and down at the beginning, but then it goes completely flat and doesn't really pick up again. The only reason I'd say this is because it started off really great, but when they find out their mum is a werewolf it's the stupidest passage ever. It was a great start to a book and then it was ruined by this moment. I didn't think the situation was explained all that well or that the characters handled this piece of news in the right way. After this it started to get really good again and I thought Cade and Alli's first meeting was brilliant. It made me smile and gave me a slight tingling sensation like a good romance should. The next low was when there was a 3 week gap where supposedly Cade and Alli continue sneaking around together but we never find out what they were doing in this gap. Were they just making out or did they actually connect on another level? I'm assuming a bit of both but because it wasn't written down I found it difficult to genuinely believe in their 'love'. The book is basically all about Cade and Alli so rest of the book was pretty stagnant in that I didn't feel anything more than a superficial affection between the pair. I disliked that there wasn't much more to this story apart from the main relationship as I think it could've been a lot better if the stories of more characters were explored. There is a 'climax' to the plot I suppose but Cade and Alli's relationship is at the heart of this too. The ending happened too fast for my liking and again, I felt that things weren't developed. There weren't a lot of plot twists but they were glanced over and written in little detail.

That all probably sounds pretty negative, but this was actually a really good book. I would've given this book four stars were it not for the instalove between Cade and Alli. This book had the potential to be brilliant but I felt that some plot strands weren't developed as much as they could've been.