Big, grateful thanks to Netgalley, Victory Editing and Eva Chase for the ARC of Captive Wolves.

Talia is a young woman who is being held in disgusting and inhumane conditions by a group of males. They torture and take her blood for nearly a decade before she is able to escape. Before she makes it out though, she is found by a different group of males, taken to a new location but still imprisoned.
Her accommodations are greatly improved and include regular meals, clothing and a room to herself but a gilded cage is a cage nonetheless.
Over time, Talia gets to know the males in the keep, together making up a cadre of wolf shifters. She even befriends a couple of the males, and feelings develop.
Talia must survive the harassments of one male who believes she should be sent away, or worse. The others need to decide where their loyalties belong and if they can protect Talia while also giving her the freedom to make her own choices.

I LOVED THIS BOOK! A full 5 stars!

The descriptions and abuse Talia goes through can be a bit triggering and her reactions to outside forces and situations after enduring such abuse are so well laid out. Trauma lingers well after the experience and this was well written.
There were a couple of steamy scenes but I liked that they were about Talia finding herself, rather than insta love, jump into bed and men being in control. They were about self love (mostly) and I think that her thoughts surrounding the men were well played. She might come off as manipulative but I think that it really gives her more depth because she spent her formative years as a captive and has never spent time navigating the ugly world of dating or been in a situation where she was able to make choices. Her life up until that point was in the hands of others.

Anyone who's read Lily Archer's Fae's Captive series will LOVE this one.

Cliffhanger ahead!

I generally dislike cliffhangers. I’ve always needed my happily-ever-after by the last page of a book, but the way Captive of Wolves ends only left me eager for the next book.

I loved the determination and spirit of Talia. No matter the odds, she refused to give up. Even frail and injured, she held on to a spark of hope. When she’s freed and taken in by another cadre of wolves, she’s scared to trust them, no matter how nice most of them seem to be.

Watching August and Sylas fight their attraction to Talia, had me eagerly waiting on them to completely fall for her. And while Whitt comes off as a drunkard who dislikes Talia, we soon learn there’s much more to him.

Wolf fights. A curse. Meddling fae. And a human who is more than ordinary. Captive of Wolves is a page-turning fantasy that will leave you wanting more.

**Thank you to NetGalley and the author/publisher for allowing me to read an ARC for Captive of Wolves.

This book... tried really hard. It is, however, fundamentally lacking in several critical literary elements. Its primary problem is that it has literally no plot. Its secondary problem is that it is insanely unoriginal - human girl! Held captive by fae men! They are all so hot! Swoon! Its third problem (and I probably should have seen this coming from the blurb and, well, the genre, but alas, I did not) is that it is a shining example of dubious consent disguised as hot romance. You can't have a romance between a woman and people who are holding her captive without it being kind of sketch. All that having been said, it's fairly well written, if formulaic, and I didn't want to punch the heroine in the face for half of the book, which was an unexpected surprise given the genre, so hey. Three stars.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher, I received this book in exchange for an honest opinion.

Captive of wolves starts as a burglary gone wrong that quickly develops into a rescue mission of a damsel in distress.

I liked how original the premise of the Captive of Wolves was- " Beyond the veil, lingers the world of the fae, who turn into monstrous creatures every full moon until a magical tonic was developed that allows them to retain their humanity."

Another thing I enjoyed was the multi-perspective narrative of this book. This style is a favorite of mine as I love getting inside the heads of the characters. This was crucial for me as this was a reverse harem novel and knowing how the various characters react was essential to plot development.

I did have a couple of peeves about it, especially with Thalia. Thalia was held captive for eight years and treated horrendously yet she suffers no extreme mental issues and seems to bounce back pretty quickly. She quickly develops relationships that have no substance and came across as a "user" with some of the characters.

Normally, I would cheer on the female heroines for their clever tactics or their use of feminine wiles against the male characters but, Thalia was too awkward to pull this off. Her sudden transition from shy virgin to almost femme fatale was laughable and, while I am all for female exploration and sensuality, the development seemed forced.

I did not agree with her rationale for a lot of actions which were quite illogical and unfortunately threw the story off for me and did nothing to engender me to her. As a character, I could not connect with Thalia at all and couldn't buy into the relationships she attempted to develop with the other men.

Captive of wolves was quite contradictory in my mind because while I understand and appreciate the undertones of sexual tension and slight RH, it felt too middle school drama for me. Thalia as a character needed to be developed properly as she came across as too weak-minded and easily swayed to capture the attention of powerful males such as Sylas and August.

This book would appeal to readers who enjoy paranormal, reverse harems with non-dominant females. Thank you to NetGalley and the author for providing me with a copy of this arc, all the views and opinions expressed are my own.

I would certainly call this a guilty pleasure read. Overall original plot, interesting characters, not widely used tropes at least in the books I read. I could have see the story go a bit deeper and much farther than it did but overall an enjoyable read. I would change up the cover because its a bit cheesy for my tastes.

I really enjoyed this book! A lot more than I thought I would actually. I thought that the idea was just different enough to be exciting! I really enjoyed getting to know the characters and for the most part did not find the main character annoying like a lot of them can be. She was fairly resilient and fun. I am excited to continue the rest of the series.

~ I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own ~

Up until 50-60% of the book I was completely captivated by the story and the original idea.
However, I haven't realised it is a reverse harem type of story, so my rating is based only on my reading prefferences. If you like this type, go for it! Is an unique story and beautiful written.

3 stars!

Captive of Wolves is book one in the new paranormal, reverse harem series by Eva chase. The story focuses on Talia, a human who has been captured by the fae because her blood is different and can help heal (although temporarily) the curse that the fae have been going through when it is a full moon, becoming violent werewolves. Talia is abused both physically and mentally in a horrific manner until one day she is ‘rescued’ by four men, but Talia could have gone from one place of captivity into another.

The four fae that have rescued Talia: August, Sylas, Whitt and Kellen are all surprisingly different. One is a leader, one has a kindness to him, one hides his hurt and one becomes a victim of his own violence, but they all have one thing in common, the curse. We delve through the story with each character trying to make a claim on Talia, who although being human has an inner fire in her that not even torture and abuse can extinguish. The story follows the development of all of their relationships (whether good or bad) and why Talia’s blood is so important. We only get hints of it throughout the book.

As it is a first book there is a lot of world building and description of why the brothers have become outcasts in their fae society. We also have small glimpses of Talia’s family and the hurt she feels on not seeing them again. I also enjoyed the two and fro of the brother’s relationship with Talia as they try to figure out why she is important as well as how each of them will navigate a relationship with her.

There is definitely a lot going on in this book and very few questions answers (hello series) as well as a huge cliff-hanger at the end. I can’t wait to see what else happens with these characters.

ARC received for a fair, honest and sometimes long review. All opinions are my own. 😊

More of my reviews can be found on my blog: http://thehotmesslibrary.blogspot.com

If you are at all familiar with paranormal romance subgenres, then the plot of Captive of Wolves---"a damaged heroine gets kidnapped by a group of hunky shapeshifters and taken to their luxurious hidden lair, only to find herself slowly falling in love with all of them"---shouldn't surprise you. It's a bit of a trope by now, and if you don't like that subgenre, you definitely won't like this. But if fantasy-romance with multiple partners is your cup of tea, then this is a decent addition to that subgenre, though don't expect it to really tread any new ground.

This is the sort of book that lives or dies based on characterization, and though I wouldn't call anything about it hugely original, the tropes it follows are followed decently. Some thing work better if you don't think about them too hard---for example, despite having been kidnapped by the Fae-who-are-also-werewolves at the age of twelve, and spending eight straight years being locked in a tiny cage, our heroine Talia is surprisingly sane and a decent conversationalist---but I've read far more irritatingly perfect heroines than Talia, so that didn't bother me too much. And I liked that we got POVs from all of the heroes.

The smut factor was somewhat muted, and this is definitely more on the paranormal romance side rather than the e-romance side. There are only a couple of explicit scenes, and there's nothing too outre in any of them.

Overall, if you're a romance fan who likes this subgenre and wants a comfort read, go ahead and pick this up.

I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is an okay story. The beginning is very promising, Talia has been a prisoner for 8 years now and the Fae that have her are using her blood for something mysterious. Everything seems hopeless, until one day, 4 men come in to search the place where she is kept to find the mysterious tonic that her captors have been producing, and discover instead that her blood is the secret ingredient they were looking for so they decide to leave with her. It is dark and the characters seem great, but then it drags on and on and on for so long.

The men who rescued Talia are nice, there is Sylas, the leader, Auguste, the young and friendly fae, Witt, the suspicious one, and Kellan, the hateful fae who would like nothing more than to get rid of Talia. Sylas is planning to give Talia to the arch-lords to gain back the prestige his pack lost (we still have no idea how they ended up being outcast and what exactly is their hierarchy though), but of course, things get more and more complicated as they come closer to the full moon date because they grew attached to Talia.

As I said, the beginning is promising and I was expecting something dark and full of action, maybe even deception. But instead, I had a 200 something pages story about how Talia slowly got back in good shape and developed relationships with her captors. I got bored near the 70% mark and had to force myself to finish the book because I was hoping that something unexpected would happen.

There is a tentative at a reverse-harem also, but honestly, all the romantic and sexy parts were awkward to read, the way it is written and Talia’s behavior just made it weird instead of sexy and exciting. She went from a virgin prisoner to a girl exploring her own body to being willing to offer herself to many men in the span of a few days, the character development is lacking for this part. The evolution of romantic feelings was also rushed and literally came out of nowhere for some characters.

The magic system in this book is original and I am sad that it was not more present. The fact that a tattoo appears on the skin of a Fae once he has mastered the true name of an object or an element and therefore mastered magic over this element is a unique and new concept for me, but it was only briefly explained and then forgotten.

Overall the story is not bad, but the whole romance and relationship aspect needs some work and the middle drags on for way too long.

This book had so much potential, unfortunately it was a bit of a let down for me.

The book starts with Talia in a cage. She's filthy, starving, and 3 people come and take her blood every month. She has no idea why they do this but they've been doing it for 8 years until one night different men come into her dungeon and break her out. We find out that Talia's blood cures the fae of their beasts when they are out of control on the full moon.

I love the idea behind this book. Talia gets free and fall in love with the fae that freed her. I also really liked that there was obviously something maybe magical about Talia that makes her blood special. Honestly this all fascinates me but for some reason I was extremely bored for most of this. After the first part of the book with the prison break, nothing really happens. Talia eats and plays games with her new friends but that's about it.

I will be reading the next book though. I want to know what kind of magic Talia has.

I was given this ARC from Netgalley for my honest review.

This was a interesting spin on shifters/ fae and the human world. It is a very slow burn, which I normally don't mind but it just got to be too long/ slow. I was hoping for more world building through out the book too, and maybe there will be more in the second. This is kind of comes in the last couple chapters. I will definitely give the second book in the series a chance.

So, I’m not quite sure where to start with this one. Toward the end it went a direction I did not see coming. This is the story of a young girl who is a human prisoner in a Fae world, and who is rescued only to find her self in another “captive” though luxurious situation, and must decide between freedom, the safety and comforts of her current keep, and giving in to her more primal desires. That being said, for a girl who went from virgin to prisoner to offering herself to multiple men, I struggled a bit to understand where her promiscuity developed. I could see multiple relationships forming and was prepared to jump on a team, I love a good love triangle, but this was something else completely and it left me feeling a little icky,

Overall the writing is a 3.5/5, sometimes a little rushed but a great storyline. The plot is a 4/5 - A new story I haven’t read that was both exciting and mysterious and set up nicely for a sequel but with a few decisions that served the purpose of the storyline but really didn’t make sense or were just too drawn out and repetitive. The character builds were a 4/5 - I felt like I knew their personalities and could pretty much follow their decision making except for the main character Talia, at times, who I felt was a little too mature for someone who had been held captive from such a young age. She knew things about the desires of men and just general adulthood themed that a 12 year old probably wouldn’t have known.

I really loved this story until the end, I just couldn’t get in board with the indecisiveness of Talia and the men, and how easily these possessive, dominant men just brushed aside monogamy and were willing to share.

This book was a super easy read, filled with interesting characters and an enjoyable writing style. The plot was fast paced, keeping the reader engaged and entertained as the chapters went on.