Touch of a Wolf by Jez Morrow

[reviews_and_ramblings]

I haven’t read all the books by Jez Morrow, true, but till now I haven’t found one that I didn’t like. Mostly paranormal stories about shapeshifters, she did well also with contemporary romance, but I think the werewolves are her preferred playfield.

When Matt meets John, it’s a bad night for him: he has just dumped his cheating boyfriend, and in-living partner, and he needs to rebound. John is alone in the street like him, and like him he needs something, someone. They have rough sex in the street followed but more sweet sex in Matt’s shitty apartment and like a stray dog who chose his home, John asks Matt if he can stay, and Matt has not really good reason to say no: no matter that John is carrying a gun, no matter that he is a drug addicted trying to detoxing, no matter that he doesn’t really know him aside from what John told him, that he is a police detective who needs to testify on a process. Those are no really good reasons to kick out a man who is always able to make sweet sex with him, that is caring and cuddling, that makes Matt feels safe and loved, feelings that his former lover Cord never was able to make him achieve.

I think Matt is a love’s deprived soul in a desperate need of a family: a single child of a single parent, and now orphaned, he has never had a real old fashioned family; plus Matt is a bit old fashioned himself, he believes in romance and love, and he wants a pretty ordinary life, the only not so ordinary thing him being gay. Even if he knows John only since few days, he feels a soul mate in him, John is very old fashioned, always out to protect him, with the right dose of jealousy, but it’s not a wrong jealousy, just that much to make Matt feel wanted and cherished. Plus John has the family thing in him, his only presence makes a shitty apartment feel like home, Matt wants to get back to him everyday, knowing that John will be there, waiting for him.

John is in deep trouble and his life is everything other than ordinary, but he has never once involved Matt in it, other than asking him for a place to crash. And even when everything seems to go down south, John is always able to see the positive side and make Matt smile. John had an hard life, but that life hasn’t hardened his heart: he is still plenty capable of loving and he is redirecting this love towards Matt, right in the moment when he needs it more. The problem is that, while he can fulfill Matt’s desire to be loved, he is not really able to accomplish the task to giving him an ordinary life: if Matt wants to love John, he has to make a choice.

I like as the author plays with the werewolf theme, John is a shapeshifter through and through but he is also a scarred man, and he is not invincible. In a way, Matt, with his cute and little body, is way stronger than John, and he will become the mainstay of their relationship.

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Amazon Kindle: Touch of a Wolf

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