ARC #Review: In the Company of Wolves by Paige Tyler - 4.5 Wine Glasses

Title: IN THE COMPANY OF WOLVES
Series: SWAT: Special Wolf Alpha Team #3
Author: Paige Tyler
Format: Kindle, 288 pages
Published: Sourcebooks Casablanca (December 1, 2015)
ISBN: ASIN:B0108GOMKO
Links: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N
Reviewer: Linda
Source: Net Galley
Rating: 4 1/2 out of 5 Wine Glasses

He opened his mouth to order her to drop the MP5 she had aimed at him, but nothing would come out. It was like she’d robbed him of the ability to speak. Shooting her wasn’t an option, though. And the idea of arresting her didn’t make him feel any better.

There's a new gang of criminals in town who are organized and ruthless in the extreme. When Eric Becker, along with the rest of the Dallas SWAT team, ends up in the middle of a shootout, he immediately senses werewolves-a lot of them. Turns out, the new bad guys are a pack of wolf shifters.

In a spray of gunfire, Becker comes face-to-face with the most gorgeous woman he's ever seen. Becker does the logical thing. He hides her and leaves the scene with the rest of his team.

Jayna Winston has no idea why that SWAT guy helped her, but she's glad he did. Ever since she and her pack mates got mixed up with those Eastern European mobsters, everything had pretty much fallen apart.

So what's a street-savvy thief like Jayna going to do with a hot alpha-male wolf who's a police officer? 

Linda's Thoughts:
The odds were incredibly stacked against a werewolf ever meeting his one-in-a-billion soul mate. There was no way Becker could have met his in the midst of an armed robbery. That kind of crap didn't happen in the real world.

IN THE COMPANY OF WOLVES by Paige Tyler is the perfect mix of romance, suspense, danger and humor. I love Paige's alpha SWAT boys! All the books in this series are set in Dallas, Texas, where a spectacularly HOT pack of wolf-shifters constitute the city's SWAT team.  Each of the installments have involved one of the pack members finding their HEA. This is the story of "big, blue-eyed were-hunk" SWAT team member Eric Becker and were-in-trouble Jayna Winston.

The couple meet in a surprising twist. All the SWAT members dream about finding their mates - they refer to their elusive other half as 'The One' - just imagine coming upon yours in an intense shoot-out with your one and only on the other side.

I really liked both the hero and heroine. Becker was sweet and ferocious. He reminded me of a sexy teddy bear where Jayna was concerned. I loved that he was unable to speak - he lost his voice and his brain cells totally checked out - when he first saw her. Becker possesses some impressive sleuthing skills -  which he aptly demonstrated when he tracked Jayna down after the fight; I was in awe by that feat.

Jayna had a rough start in life with an addict mom and an abusive step-father. In the author's fantasy world, werewolves are created in periods of high-stress and, as this story opens, the reader becomes privy to Jayna's mutation when she was seventeen in a serious altercation with her step-dad. She then ran away from home and ends up with a pack of werewolves that she grows to care for. Fast-forward to the present day: Jayna's alpha has his pack involved with gangsters and illegal activities. Realistically, Jayna knows that it's only a matter of time before she or one of her cohorts  are hurt or killed.

The author's innovative word-building continues to expand in this series as we are introduced to omegas and betas in this installment. In another interesting development, we learn that Becker, Jayna, and her packmates are all relatively new to being weres. Hence, the reader gleans new information about their world and its hierarchy as the characters do.

Even though this is the third book in the author's SWAT series, it can easily be enjoyed as a standalone, if that is your preference. Characters from the previous tales do carry over to this book, so it would enhance the pleasure element to read the entire series in order, but it's certainly not required.

Following please find a few of my favorite quotes from this read:

"I promise not to bite - unless you ask nicely."
---

He grinned. "Some guys like to work on cars or do woodworking. I search for beautiful women who might want to bite me."
---

Gage sighed. "This team was a whole hell of a lot easier to run before any of us had ever heard about The One. You know that, right?"
Maybe." Becker grinned. "But it wasn't nearly as interesting."

I had so many favorite scenes, but I'll only share one herein. This snippet made me laugh out loud at the time. It is taken from a scene in which Becker is introducing his rather fancy-named pet fish to her as he shows her around his abode:

"Do they have names?"
"The red one with the silver markings is Lady Liadrin, the dark blue one is Queen Azshara, and the black one with the long, wavy fins is Lady Vashj."
She glanced at him. Those are the strangest names for fish I've ever heard. What's wrong with Dory?"

Every book in this series has been fantastic. If you enjoy inventive and exciting paranormal urban fantasies with sexy were-shifters, I'd highly recommend that you pick up IN THE COMPANY OF WOLVES!



Suggested Reading order:
Hungry Like the Wolf (SWAT, #1) - Review | Purchase
Wolf Trouble (SWAT, #2) - Purchase | Review

In the Company of Wolves (SWAT, #3)