Review - Claw'd by Vin George

Pack alpha Gethin discovers an intruder in his house. Surprisingly, it’s a vampire. They should know better than to break into a shifter’s home. The man appears drugged and on the verge of bloodlust, but vampires are supposed to be impervious to narcotics. Gethin manages to subdue and bind the vampire. When the man recovers, he reveals his name to be Sorley, and he was indeed under the influence of some drug given to him by a man in a nightclub. Although shifters and vampires are supposed to be enemies, the two men are strangely drawn to each other. Together with their friends, they set out trying to find the persons responsible for drugging Sorley and several others.

This sequel to Fang’d is set in the same fantasy world of a contemporary England where vampires, wolf shifters, faeries, and other supernatural creatures exist. Several secondary characters from the first book also play roles in this story, which focuses on two new main characters. You could, in theory, read this book without having read the first, but you’d be missing a lot of background on the world in which Gethin and Sorley exist.

Gethin is much as you would expect from a shifter pack alpha. He’s big and strong and, apparently, stuck in some rather old-fashioned ideas about sexuality and gender roles. Naturally, those ideas get challenged by the out and proud Sorley. Gethin knows what he wants, but until Sorley comes along, he didn’t think it was something he could ever have.

Sorley has had 300 years as a vampire to sharpen his tongue. It’s easy to see how Sorley can be both very charming and extremely exasperating, often at the same time. However, beneath the seemingly flippant behavior is someone with a good heart, even though he is a vampire. I’m not sure I would make the same extreme choice that Gethin makes in this story, but it’s not unbelievable.

“Claw’d” is available from Amazon (commissionable link).