The Werewolf Book I Never Knew I Needed

After finishing The Broken Destiny series by Jeaniene Frost, I went to her blog to see if she had any upcoming books. She didn’t. But what I did find was a glowing recommendation to Maria Vale’s debut book, The Last Wolf, which is the first book in her Legend of All Wolves series.

As someone who has read A LOT of werewolf books, I knew that this was going to be right up my alley. I’d even go so far as to say that this book is one of the BEST werewolf books I’ve ever read.

So, of course, we need to discuss this!

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The Last Wolf

Werewolf Culture in the Story-world

The unique aspect of this book, in my view, is the werewolf culture. In this story-world, the werewolves are wolves who turn into humans-- not the other way around (which is the usual case in other books). They have no choice but to turn into wolves during the full moon, also called the “Iron Moon”. More importantly, they embrace this side of themselves and consider it their sacred form.

So, as you can imagine, their entire society is more primal than human. They live in a sanctuary separated from humans. It works out too because they’re born wolves (it’s so cool!) and so they have an actual education system set up where they learn human behaviour. Aside from that, hierarchy also is so strict. There are alphas and betas and thetas and so on. Because strength and dominance is such a huge part of the Pack organization, mating too is based solely upon these traits in order to produce strong offspring, in order again to strengthen the Pack as a whole.

The main character, Silver Nilsdottir, is at the bottom of the pack. Although she’s physically weak as a runt, she’s “strong of marrow”. It means that she’s willful, determined, and basically a survivor. I loved this about her. Even if the odds almost always seemed against her, she’s just the type of person who would push through and move forward. Plus, she’s such a wolf! You’ll know it when you read it. She’s truly a wolf first before a human.

Romeo & Juliet-esque Romance

The hero is Tiberius Leveraux. He’s half-werewolf, half-shifter. A shifter is someone who can shift into a wolf but doesn’t really have to. Meaning, they can skip the Iron Moon. They’re humans who occasionally turn into wolves, a form they detest. To them, it’s all about the control. If they shift to their wolf form, it would be seen as a sign of weakness.

Since Tiberius is half-pack, he has a powerful urge to turn into a wolf. But, as half-shifter, he can still opt not to. That’s sort of his main struggle when he meets Silver. She is so attuned to her wild side and he is SO not. She teaches him how to be a proper wolf while he teaches her to be a proper human.

What’s Romeo & Juliet-esque about their story is their upbringing. They’re on opposite sides of the spectrum, obviously. On top of that, Pack and Shifters don’t mix. They abhor each other. That’s about where that comparison ends.

Unlike Romance and Juliet, Silver and Tiberius don’t have a whirlwind romance. It’s a slow, but delicious build. I don’t mind that. But if you do, let me assure you that the whole werewolf culture in this book is far more interesting than the romance. In large part, I think, because of its commentary on human behaviour. For example,

My Favorite Scene

This is a scene with Xander, one of the pups (werewolf children) who is just learning how to converse with humans. Tiberius, along with Teacher Leonara, is helping him out.

“Good morning, Mr. Tiberius,” pipes Xander’s childish voice. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, Xander. And you?” Tiberius replies with exaggerated courtesy.
“Better, because I had a tick right here?” He lifts his leg and points to a spot between his legs. “Next to my left ball? But when I turned yesterday? It fell off. It was like this big.” He holds his hands to indicate a monster tick the size of a hockey puck. “I pinned it on the wall next to my desk. “He hesitates, looking at Leonara, and adds quick “Thank you for asking” before sitting back on the ground.
Leonara turns to the rest of the juveniles. “That was a good first try but what would have made it better?”
(Insert many -wrong- guesses from the pups)
“Tiberius? Can you tell us what Xander did wrong?”
“He made the mistake of assuming that I actually wanted to know how he was.”
“Exactly! When humans ask how you are doing, it is meaningless. Tiberius, would you care to help me show the class how it’s done?”
“My pleasure,”
“Good morning, Tiberius. How are you?”
“Fine, thanks. And you?”
“Just fine.”
“Now,” says Leonara, looking over her class. “See how simple it is?”

Any Gripes about the book?

A couple, actually. It’s not a perfect book. It can be confusing at times, especially with the werewolf language bits. In addition, the ending was a little too abrupt for me.

But, overall, I found the story to be super interesting and unique. I LOVED Silver’s perspective and I really liked her and Tiberius together. I would definitely pick up the next book, even if they won’t be the main characters there anymore.

What’s your favourite werewolf series? Let me know in the comments!