Weekend Read: A small town werewolf sanctuary in West Texas for Black werewolves.
[Completed series] Wolves of West Texas Series by Chenicia C. Higgins
Hi Librarygoers!
It’s a busy week over here in the library. I have a fat stack of ARCs to get through, I’m a third of the way through editing my novel (and slacking on finding an editor), this is my second post of the week, and I’m hiding under the covers while false fall booms its way into town.
The weather means it’s finally cozy enough for me to gleefully dig into the spooky season romances that have found their way to my shelves. I already had a great time with one witchy Halloween romance and I’m looking forward to shifting a few more from my TBR pile.
Witchy romances are year round reading for me but they feel great in this season, just like paranormal romances. Which is why I’m recommending a (complete) paranormal series to your fall reading list.
We’re going to west Texas and meeting the wolves of Madow, a small sanctuary town for werewolves. This series of novellas was on my list for a while and three days of jury service (a civil case about a contract violation) a couple of months ago delivered the perfect opportunity to read them.
If you’re a fan of shifter romances, fated mates, and small towns these are perfect for you.
Here are my stats!
Note: If you purchase books linked here via Bookshop, I may receive a small commission.
What is this series about?
We are introduced to Madox, TX when Janine ends a nine-hour escape from the only home she’s known. We find out the town was founded by Bani Dowd, an enslaved woman who’s captor willed her two thousand acres after his death, along with the freedom of her and her eleven children (seven of which he sired). The captor happened to be a werewolf so are all the children he sired with Bani. Overtime, more formerly enslaved people, some of them also werewolf shifters, ended up on their land and at the start of this series. At the time of the series, they are a community of about 3,000.
In this world, werewolves are known, as well as a legally and highly protected species. They turn freely and are stronger than humans, even in their human form. They are also have alphas, betas, and omegas. I won’t get into too much detail there because there are strong storylines related to the omegaverse throughout the novellas.
What are the individual novellas about?
[Book 1] Janine is on the run from the werewolf town where she grew up, a town that sounds suspiciously like a cult. She was fed up with the rules and escaped the night before she was to be wed to a friend she absolutely didn’t love. Like the residents who found their way to Madow in the 1800s, she finds sanctuary there and starts trying to rebuild her life.
Langston is supposed to be True Alpha of the pack shortly after his father’s death but he finds himself struggling through grief and insecurity about shouldering the weight of the pack. Then the new wolf in town turns his eye, his head(s), heart, and literally everything else.
[Book 2] Lenora is an omega and as pack omega her role is to keep the emotional balance of the pack. A balance that might be hard to keep if she is able to act on her feelings for Adrian, the pack beta and the best friend of her twin, Langston.
Adrian has the same feelings for Lenora but he keeps it hidden under a thick layer of gruffness and a directive from his deceased father to never give into the pull of love, lest it stop him from doing his job. When another wolf starts to make (very welcome) advances on Lenora, does Adrian give her up for what he perceives as the good of the pack?
[Book 3] Alicia does not like strangers. Or change. And is not good at making friends. She does want to repeat mistakes of the past and keeping people out is how she’s done it in the past, but she’s starting to realize that might not be the best path forward. So she tries by developing friendships with Janine and Lenora but she still finds it hard to let her walls down.
And then there’s Brix, he’s rebuilding life after escaping the same cult Janine did in book 1. Only he’s super happy. He’s the sunshine to her grump, except for at night when all the pain he tries to hide bubbles to the surface. He’s trying so hard to be useful to Madow that he’s struggling to find who he is when he’s able to define himself.
Alicia and Brix two of them find safe spaces in one another which makes sense to no one, especially them. Is this a recipe for the perfect wolfy HEA?
What are three words to describe the tone of this series?
Powerful, swoony, and hilarious.
Who would you recommend this series to?
Anyone who loves:
Ω Omegaverse
🏘️ Small towns
💕 Fated mates
👨👩👧👦 Found families
🐺 Werewolf shifters
🏃🏽♀️ Escaping a cult
🚫❤️ Forbidden love
😡☀️ Grumpy/sunshine
📕 Novellas
📚 Completed series
Do you need to read the rest of this series to understand this book?
Maybe? This is a series of interconnected standalone novellas. You won’t completely be lost if you read them out of order but as shorter novellas they are fast paced and don’t spend a lot of time going over backstory. You might not under the full complexity of the relationships if you read out of order. The familial relationships and friendships are almost as important as the romantic relationships! Plus, with the entire series under 4oo pages, it’s like reading one slightly chunky novel.
What made these work for me?
I really needed instant gratification maximum when I read these. I read these over three days on jury duty with lots of sporadic free time. There wasn’t enough time to actually start a work project but I did get to hop in and out the pages of these really easily. These books are short and sweet, they’re all under 200 pages, and get the job done efficiently and with gusto. The characters are full of personality, the spice is top tier, and the world is beautifully unique.
There are also some laugh out loud funny moments in this series. There’s a scene in book 3 where Alicia’s no-nonsense personality breaks all the tension of the room and I may or may not have cackled out loud in public.
It’s the perfect series for a cleanser in between heavy reads or whenever you want to live in a new world for a while.
Are you an F1 romance fan? What else is on your fall reading list?