Dire Bound (The Wolves of Ruin Book 1)

**knocks on your door**
Do you have a few minutes to talk about ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2025?

God, this book was exactly what I needed. A big, fat romantasy filled with drama, tension, the slowest slow burn, and found family.

Was this book somewhat predictable? Yes, but not entirely. Was it heavily inspired by Fourth Wing? Glaringly obvious yes, but honestly.. it works.

DIREWOLVES ARE THE NEW DRAGONS.

I was utterly immersed in this book, it was incredibly gripping and while I saw some of the twists coming, a lot of it was still somewhat surprising. I can not fully express how deeply I love this book (and Anassa... and Stark... and all the wolves in general).

Some people find Meryn to be annoying, but truthfully, she is traumatized, losing her father at a young age, caring for her mentally ill mother, and parenting her younger sister when she's still not even fully grown up herself. Her arc was satisfying, and I can not wait to see her grow even more in book 2.

I think the biggest trigger warning here are the wolf deaths. If you are deeply affected by animal deaths, know that there are a few, and they were hard to read for me. Otherwise, complete perfection.

♾️ stars, I won't know peace until I have book two in my hands.

Summary: Fourth Wing but with wolves instead of dragons. I enjoyed this, as a fun yet decently-written romantasy read (there have been a LOT of similar books published recently, most in a bit of a rush to jump on the trend and therefore kinda rubbish - but this one at least is decent). The plot is admittedly a bit predictable (the big "twist" was rather obvious) and it does incorporate a lot of the standard tropes, but honestly no-one is reading this as an example of high literature anyway. It's a fun read and a good pace that grabs you from the start. The only things that did irritate me was the somewhat unnecessarily horny side characters and spicy scenes (I definitely had to skim over some parts that were rather *cringe*), and I also felt that some parts were a bit rushed. There were missed opportunities to develop certain characters and the general worldbuilding / magical lore. But again, it's meant to be a fun, fast-paced read, not LoTR.

The plot was very obvious and I am afraid that the characters were not fleshed out enough for me to understand their motives beyond a surface level. Each character feels like they are simply there to fulfill a trope. Not a horrible read, but felt a bit mindless. Will not continue, but I do recommend for people who prefer plot development over character development. I can see this being an enjoyable ready for many, it was not poorly written and the premise was interesting. It was the mental equivalent of splashing in puddles, fun and invigorating, but ultimately not challenging.