Here we have a werewolf couple having calming mugs of cocoa, and talking their sex life through. It is still Briggs' characterisation that is the most obvious selling point.

It's delightfully difficult to pin this down as per genre, however, as we have a lot of thriller tropes, a fair bit of espionage, and international bickering to go with the fantasy lore. We don't get a very in-depth look at the city, as too much of this story is set in hotel rooms, anonymous conference halls and hidden hideaways, but the urban fantasy is back within the more obvious home for it. Swinging from the snowy wastes of the first book to downtown Seattle has done the series no harm. His son is around, as usual, to do any fixing up when singular wolves get too malevolent for the rest, but might everybody be about to bite off more than they can chew? Once again the non-human in amongst us are thinking of coming out publicly, and the Marrok, the biggest big cheese in the werewolf species, is trying to get the point across that this is best for all. This is a book drifting back into the regular Briggs universe, from the nearly all-werewolf series opener. And you have to remember that you might be playfighting in the snow one minute, and the next told by your father-in-law to go to Seattle, and act as a figurehead for a revolution in werewolf life - and stand in the face of a very wicked and powerful European werewolf, vampires, and more. You have to equate his inner Brother Wolf being practically a different entity to his human side, and know when and how to relate to both. You have to swing your new-found status as the motherly, calming, but powerful Omega wolf, with his Alpha-male studly status. Life with a werewolf is a question of balances. Summary: A second and meatier task for our werewolf couple, as diplomacy is found to be difficult with vicious vampires and shadowy motives galore.

Alpha and omega patricia briggs