Land of Wolves: Revelations
(Land of Wolves, #1)
Invi Wright
Publisher: Self-published
Publication date: March 31, 2026
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Rating:
Evelyn intends to kill the man she’s destined to love.
She’s the shifter alpha’s fated mate, and the red marking on her hand is the proof. Captured as a child and raised in a human government facility, she’s the weapon that will finally bring the shifters to their knees.
Evelyn knows her purpose. Get close. Learn the alpha’s secrets. Then kill him.
Sent into shifter territory under the guise of a failed kidnapping, she quickly finds herself in the presence of her mate—the elusive Alpha Knox. He’s feared, ruthless, and yet nothing like the monster she was taught to expect. Instead of brutality, he offers protection. Instead of cruelty, he offers patience.
For the first time in her life, Evelyn begins to question who the real enemy is.
If she accepts the mate bond, she betrays her people. If she completes her mission, she destroys the only man who has ever treated her like she matters.
My thoughts…
You know, the whole reason why I decided to read this is book is because I read a one-star review on Goodreads where the person talked about all the things they didn’t like about this book, and it piqued my interest. Not because I thought it would be fun to mock the book, but because everything she had an issue with, sounded like my cup of tea. With that said, it did take me a while to fully get into this book. A lot of it is Evelyn living with Caleb while she struggles with her mission and her growing feelings for him. I did feel like the writing was a bit clunky and stilted, but I wanted to see this story through, so I pushed on, and I am glad I did.
I honestly thought this would be your typical story where she’s programmed to take out the enemy, catches feelings, and then confesses to everything she was tasked to do. Except, that is not what happens with this book. Even though Evelyn is developing a connection with Caleb and he’s showing her compassion and comfort that she never received in the human facility she was raised in, she still thinks she has to kill him for the greater good. She has been brainwashed and manipulated since the age of 7 when the human agents abducted her, saw that she had a mate mark to a werewolf, and then started training her as their weapon to infiltrate the werewolves and take out an Alpha. So, even though Caleb makes her feel safe and she catches feeling for him, she still reminds herself that they are nothing more than animals and resolves herself to the mission.
Now, the beginning may have been slow going for me, but let me tell you, when she goes to kill Caleb this book takes off like Usain Bolt. Unfortunately for me, this part took place at 10pm when I wanted to just read one chapter before bed. I wound up staying up past midnight, heart racing, devouring the second half of the book. For me, this is when the story got really good. It’s no longer just Evelyn and Caleb in his house, it’s Evelyn living on pack lands after she completes her mission. For obvious reasons, they can’t release her to the humans because she knows too much, but for whatever reason they won’t kill her, either. So she’s stuck living on pack lands, trying to navigate her new life, while coming to terms that she was manipulated and brainwashed by the people she trusted. I found this portion of the book to be fascinating and at that point I had a hard time putting the book down.
I liked the fresh take the author had with the mate marks. Rather than some invisible internal pull we always read about with shifter novels, this one is a mark on your hand that you are born with. The mark changes color if you are intimate with someone other than your mate, or if you betray your mate in any way. I liked that there was a visual marker for mates and that due to the magic of the mate bond, it was a unique pattern and color. I also liked that the storyline did not follow the usual story arc I expected. Evelyn could have given up her purpose, confessed, and moved on like every other heroine who is trained to assassinate someone. However, she followed through with her mission, and paid the price. Another aspect that I liked was that each chapter had an illustration depicted from a scene in that chapter. It was interesting seeing the characters through the author’s eyes.
All in all, it was a bit of a rough start for me, but it sank its hooks in me and grabbed me at the end. It ends on a cliffhanger, but thankfully for me, book two is already out.
