Wild Sign (Alpha and Omega book 6) by Patricia Briggs
Urban Fantasy released by Orbit on March 16, 2021

Mated werewolves Charles Cornick and Anna Latham must discover what could make an entire community disappear–before it’s too late–in this thrilling entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling Alpha and Omega series.

In the wilds of the Northern California mountains, all the inhabitants of a small town have gone missing. It’s as if the people picked up and left their possessions behind. With a mystery on their hands and no jurisdiction on private property, the FBI dumps the whole problem in the lap of the land owner, Aspen Creek, Inc.–aka the business organization of the Marrok’s pack.

Somehow, the pack of the Wolf Who Rules is connected to a group of vanished people. Werewolves Charles Cornick and Anna Latham are tasked with investigating, and soon find that a deserted town is the least of the challenges they face.

Death sings in the forest, and when it calls, Charles and Anna must answer. Something has awakened in the heart of the California mountains, something old and dangerous–and it has met werewolves before.

I was very excited when I got my little hands on this book (digitally speaking) and I’ve re-read it, and every time I finish it, I’m left with that good book satisfaction that quickly turns to a sort of sadness that the book is over, the characters and their world no longer vividly a part of mine. All of this to say, I really enjoyed this book. This is the latest in the Alpha and Omega series, featuring the couple Anna and Charles. It is loosely tied to Briggs’s Mercy Thompson series, but I’ve read all the Alpha and Omega books without feeling like I was lost, so if you don’t want to read about twenty books to get up to speed on this one, you’ll be just fine. I do think that it is better to have read the other books in the Alpha and Omega series, because you get to see Anna and Charles develop as characters; you get to see them get even better as a couple; and you get to see secondary characters be more fleshed out, like Bram. Anna and Charles are on another mission on behalf of Bram (Charles’s father). The mission brings to light the pasts of Bram and his wife, which are tangled up with that evil mentioned in the blurb–and it really is pretty gruesome. That brings me to a content warning for abuse and incest–it isn’t on the page, but it is mentioned by other characters. What I enjoyed most, and what kept this book from becoming too creepy and scary for me, was Anna and Charles’s constancy and their warm relationship. Continue reading →