“You mean, in every life but this one, I—we—whatever the fuck I am—has loved and left Abernathy?” I heard a ceramic clink of a cup making contact with a saucer.
“That’s the long and the short of it, yes.”

Love Binds

Thank you, NetGalley and Oliver-Heber Books, for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

For Hanna Harvey, happily ever is just the beginning…of a hot mess. Now mated to darkly dangerous but irresistibly seductive werewolf, Mark Abernathy, she’s finding that life isn’t the endless cheese and whisky fueled boinkfest she’d imagined it to be. Plagued by terrifying nightmares of a mysterious entity bent on her destruction and drowning in her new responsibilities as the alpha female of the werewolf world, she’s begun to doubt that she really is the heir. And she isn’t the only one.

When certain werewolf factions refuse to acknowledge Hanna’s rule, what begins as a clan rivalry threatens to erupt into the first shifter war in centuries. Which is like, the worst. As is the return of Hanna’s former flame and neophyte vampire, Detective James Morrison. Bitter and out for blood (literally), he’s made it his business to exact his vengeance on all non-humans…Hanna included.

Hoping to stave off the shifter Apocalypse, Hanna and Abernathy travel to The Gathering, where a mysterious figure from Abernathy’s past reveals a closely guarded secret with the power to break not only her heart, but their sworn bond as mates. With the fate of the werewolf world resting squarely on her bony shoulders, Hanna must now decide to trust the wildness within, or abandon the shifter world forever.

I loved the first three books in this series, but unfortunately, this one fell flat for me.

After mating with Mark, Hanna thought that her life would become a little easier. However, it’s proving to be anything but. Certain werewolves refuse to acknowledge Hanna’s rule as heir, she’s cursed with nightmares of a mysterious entity determined to destroy her, and Morrison is a strigoi hell-bent on murdering her for breaking his heart. And on top of that, she hasn’t been able to shift since the night she and Mark mated. When she and Mark travel to Ireland for The Gathering, Hannah must decide whether to trust her claim as heir or leave the shifter world for good.

Despite the story falling flat for me, there were some elements that I enjoyed. I loved the introduction of new lore like the Strigoi and dragons. I also loved the side characters like Crixus, Allan, and Hayden. Hayden’s introduction to the book is one of the things that kept me reading. He was sweet, delightful, and surprisingly optimistic based on his history.

But while I liked a lot of the side elements in this book, I think that Mark and Hanna’s story is played out. I thought that their chemistry would go beyond just physical once they mated, but it didn’t. The only things the two seem to do are have sex and fail to communicate. There were pacing problems with their story, fueled by the endless communication problems between the two. It made sense for him to be guarded before she was officially part of the paranormal world, but now that she is and that they’re mated for life, his secrecy is a bit of a red flag.

The book also lacked the main focus of a mystery, which I think was its shortcoming. The external conflict felt rushed and thrown in since most of the book focused on Hanna’s internal issues. If there is a fifth book in the series, I might give it a shot, but the series could have ended with the last book, and I think it would have been a lot better.