It’s not frequent, but occasionally I’m starting to accept review requests from blog tours. I thought getting to share a giveaway might be fun and I like all the pretty graphics. Today is my stop on Sharon Buchbinder’s Tears of the Wolf tour. The book was also featured on Sadie’s Spotlight.

Hotel LaBelle Book 4

by Sharon Buchbinder

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Chief of Tribal Police Jacob Graywolf serves and protects his community on the reservation. When an epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women hits home, he’s relieved the FBI gets involved. But something about the woman agent has him running scared.

FBI Special Agent Zena Adalwolf is certain Jacob is her soul mate. Their connection at first sight is immediate and urgent—a bond that transcends their professional relationship. If only the clueless hunk would realize they belong together!

After more Native American women are killed, Zena and Jacob suspect they have a serial killer on their hands. To track down the unsub, they allow their inner wolves to come out and play. But with the ever-ticking clock going wild, will the killer find them first?

Sharon Buchbinder has been writing fiction since middle school and has the rejection slips to prove it. An RN, she provided health care delivery, became a researcher, association executive, and obtained a PhD in Public Health. She is the author of the Hotel LaBelle Series, the Jinni Hunter Series, and the Obsession Series. When not attempting to make students and colleagues laugh or writing, she can be found fishing, walking her dogs, herding cats, or breaking bread and laughing with family and friends in Baltimore, MD and Punta Gorda, FL.

Despite its subject matter, I thought Tears of the Wolf was sweet above all else. The romance is buried under the mystery (and honestly fairly flat, with almost no angst at all) but it is needed honey in the story. I did appreciate however that Jacob and Zena don’t play games. The author creates no artificial barriers to overcome for them to be together, no big “misunderstanding” or secret from the past; just two adults deciding to be together. It was nice to not get messed about in that manner.  But it did leave the romantic aspect of the book lacking substantive impact.

I can’t say that for the mystery though. It was impactful, in both good and bad ways. On the good side, Buchbinder tackled the plaque of missing and murdered Indigenous women in America. And as much as I can judge as a white woman, seems to have done it well. If her lengthy, source citing note at the end is to be trusted, she did the research the subject deserves. However, despite a small attempt at a red herring, the villian is pretty obvious, and their methods, motivations, and internal monologue are cliched to the point of cringe.

All in all, I’d call Tears of the Wolf a solid, if flawed read, and would happily read more of Buchbinder’s work.