The Last Wolf by Sue Brown

Hey everyone,

The book: The Last Wolf

Book 1 in the Sapphire Ranch Wolves Series 

The only good predator is a dead one, as far as Joe Lowther is concerned. 

That is until the day he shoots a wolf, only to watch the animal turn into a naked Callum Pope. Cal is being hunted by a group of humans who eradicate shifter packs for sport. 

Joe makes a decision to help Cal and discovers a deeper connection with the young shifter. One which he’d like to explore. If they live that long. 

My Thoughts:

I feel a little conflicted about this book. It isn’t that I didn’t like it; I personally thought the concept of shifters being hunted by zealous human was extremely interesting. I also thought Cal and Joe were both likeable characters. Cal is a werewolf and a big part of his personality is decided by pack hierarchy, in particular his position as pack omega.

“There’s one other rank, omega. Generally the smallest and weakest wolf”.

Cal is clearly ashamed of his status as omega, probably due to how his family/pack viewed him as less everything due to it. To be honest Sue Brown doesn’t paint Cal’s family in a good light, they bully him, treat him as a servant, tell him he isn’t strong enough to defend the pack and finally leave him to fend for himself because he will apparently slow them down as they escape from the hunters. 


For all these reasons Cal has little confidence in his abilities and views himself as a liability to those he loves. Despite all this, however, he’s still extremely loyal and concerned about his family. Let’s just say he’s a better person than I am. 

In contrast Joe is a human and completely unaware of the existence of werewolf. Although in my opinion he handles it extremely well, maybe a little too well to be believable.

“'You’re a...' Cal waited patiently as Joe stuttered his way through his thoughts. 'The wolf vanished’. ‘The wolf changed,’ Cal corrected. ‘Into a man’.

Now if I had shot a wolf (not that I would ever do that as a huge animal lover) and it then turned into a man I would freak out! Big time but Joe he just needs one conversation and then he’s asking about waffles. So apart from being unfazed by wolves Joe is a university professor, a hidden (from his parents) gay man and also extremely calm under pressure. During the course of The Last Wolf Joe accepts werewolves, mass genocide, telepathy and mates as if it’s just a normal day.

I think this is probably my biggest issue with the book and one I believe is due to the length. This is a short novel at just over 150 pages and yet it has a lot of external obstacles. For me this meant the character's development loss out and rather than showing me how Cal and Joe fell in love the author relied on instalove and the concept of mates. Now I love shifter romances and the concept fated mates play a big part in this genre, however, I personally still want to see the characters fool in love. Maybe even question their mating? But neither Cal or Joe do this.

Overall I felt this book had great potential and could have been amazing; but for me it just didn’t deliver enough character development, internal conflict or emotion for me to be truly gripped by it.

My rating:

Happy reading and see you next time!