Red Rider (The Sworn Saga #1)
Summary:
In a land where a werewolf army called the Sworn rule over the humans and walking corpses called treecrawlers roam the wilderness between settlements, orphaned Red has a secret that she and her grandmother have been hiding for years. She’s one of the Chosen, the despised young women selected to bear children in the stead of barren female werewolves.
Red keeps her identifying mark hidden, and she doesn’t take advantage of the luxuries available to the future mothers of the Sworn. But her secret is discovered when she rescues her rebel boyfriend from execution for treason, and she can hide the truth no longer.
Red is intercepted by a dangerous young Sworn named Vixor Rae, a prince among the werewolves, and taken through the dangerous wilderness to serve her fate in the capital.
Vixor intrigues Red against her will, but he is her enemy, and she wants nothing more than to see him dead.
But when treecrawlers attack the Sworn caravan headed for the capital, and only Red and Vixor survive, the two must rely on each other to make it out of the perilous wilderness alive. (Summary and cover courtesy of goodreads.com)
Review:
I was intrigued by the premise of this book, but then it fell a bit flat. It moved slow for me, there was a lot of anxiety and then the rest of the book felt very formulaic and predictable. The girl resists fate, but somehow fate finds her anyway. A large chunk of the book is after their coach is attacked by treecrawlers and then it became a bit of classic stuck-with-your-enemy, but trying-to-survive. I generally enjoy these books, but I didn’t see much development of the characters.
Ultimately the plot twist towards the end wasn’t something that intrigued me. Instead the twist seemed to invalidate a lot of the aspects of the book I did like. I liked the thought of having a Little Red Riding Hood retelling and it was fun, but ultimately, I won’t continue the series.
Warning: Contains repeated violence
Rating: 3 stars!
Who should read it? Fans of the paranormal, particularly werewolves.
Want to read the whole series?
Silver Wolf (The Sworn Saga #2)
Black Veil (The Sworn Saga #3)