Thank you, NetGalley, for the chance to read and review Cruel Wolves and Devious Deceptions by Danielle Annett.

Cruel Wolves and Devious Deceptions by Danielle Annett came out earlier this year on the 1st of June and is the third book in the Hellbound Hearts series. The book was published by Coffee and Characters, but the e-ARC was courtesy of Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op. It's 227 pages long and counts as a paranormal romance. While I approved some time ago, I made use of my Kindle Unlimited subscription to read the book.

This short, fun smutty read has, or will probably make, rounds on BookTok. We have a wealthy but independent shapeshifter who has been obsessed with the same girl for a while. He can get anyone but holds back and gets super protective and possessive. Our main character is pretty and feisty, sexy but still a virgin, and constantly argues back.

So as a whole, I'm leaving the book three stars. I can see a significant amount of appeal, but there were some elements that I couldn't get with.

The book is billed as an enemy to lovers, but they aren't really ever enemies. They're in the same social circle, and they argue with each other a lot; that's all. The book is supposed to feature an academy, but it's just a prop to get them unsupervised together and show that the dude plays a sexy sport.

The age gap was a bit weird. What 17-year-old is into a 14-year-old? And later in the story, her age didn't matter. I think it kept getting thrown in simply to market the book as having an age gap. However, if you had made the character a bit older, it wouldn't have made a difference except make things less weird. Our main character was pretty pick-me at the start, which I disliked (but she is 17), and I hate it in this day and age when authors include the "You're not like other girls" line in the book. Even if you're characters are stupid, they're teenagers and college students, and they should know how to pass as woke. I was not a fan of some of the character names like KeAnne or Joaninha.

While this book was fun, I didn't want to read any others in the series. ( )