Wolves And Roses

By Christina Bauer

"Must read YA paranormal romance!" - USA Today

Seventeen-year-old Bryar Rose has a problem. She’s descended from one of the three magical races—shifters, fairies, or witches. That makes her one of the Magicorum, and Magicorum always follow a fairy tale life template. In Bryar’s case, that template should be Sleeping Beauty.

Should being the key word.

Trouble is, Bryar is nowhere near the sleeping beauty life template. Not even close. She doesn’t like birds or woodland creatures. She can’t sing. And she certainly can’t stand Prince Philpot, the so-called “His Highness of Hedge Funds” that her aunties want her to marry. Even worse, Bryar’s having recurring dreams of a bad boy hottie and is obsessed with finding papyri from ancient Egypt. What’s up with that?

“Exciting and well-conceived” – Kirkus

All Bryar wants is to attend a regular high school with normal humans and forget all about shifters, fairies, witches, and the curse that Colonel Mallory the Magnificent placed on her. And she might be able to do just that--if only she can just keep her head down until her eighteenth birthday when the spell that’s ruined her life goes buh-bye.

But that plan gets turned upside down when Bryar Rose meets Knox, the bad boy who’s literally from her dreams. Knox is a powerful werewolf, and his presence in her life changes everything, and not just because he makes her knees turn into Jell-O. If Bryar can’t figure out who—or what—she really is, it might cost both her and Knox their lives… as well as jeopardize the very nature of magic itself.

"A fun romp for Twilight fans."- School Library Journal

Fairy Tales of the Magicorum Series
A series of modern fairy tales with sass, action and romance
1. Wolves And Roses
1.5 Moonlight And Midtown
2. Shifters And Glyphs
3. Slippers And Thieves

Also From Christina Bauer
- Angelbound, the story of a part-demon girl who fights evil souls in Purgatory’s Arena
- Dimension Drift, a dystopian adventure with science, snark and hot aliens
- Fairy Tales of the Magicorum, a series of modern fairy tales with sass, action and romance
- Beholder, where a medieval farm girl discovers necromancy and true love

Don’t Miss Out
Get your FREE copy of Christina’s novella, BEVERLY HILLS VAMPIRE, when you sign up for her personal newsletter: https://tinyurl.com/bauersbooks ***Not available in stores***

• Language: English
• Publisher: Monster House Books, LLC
• Release date: Oct 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781945723063

Christina Bauer

Christina Bauer thinks that fantasy books are like bacon: they just make life better. All of which is why she writes romance novels that feature demons, dragons, wizards, witches, elves, elementals, and a bunch of random stuff that she brainstorms while riding the Boston T. Oh, and she includes lots of humor and kick-ass chicks, too. Christina lives in Newton, MA with her husband, son, and semi-insane golden retriever, Ruby. She loves to connect with her fans at BauersBooks.com.

Reviews for Wolves And Roses

[arkhamreviews · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Actual score: 3.5 out of 5I was actually really pleasantly surprised by this novel, as I'm not generally a fan of paranormal romances. Wolves and Roses was a fantastically original novel set in a world where magical beings (known as the Magicorum) lived side by side with ordinary humans. The novel was quick to set the scene with Bryar Rose - a girl destined to live out the lifestyle - battling her destiny as she truly had little interest in a princess's happily ever after story.However, the concept had a few flaws that prevented me from rating it higher. The resounding questions of "why" and "how" hang over a lot of the his story. We are told that all Magicorum live out their lives according to template but we are never told how they come to receive their "templates", or what happens if they do not. We learn early on that shifters inner animals die if they don't transform before they are eighteen, but we don't learn what becomes of the wizards, fae or humans. After a while, I realised that no explanation was coming and that I'd just have to accept this vague aspect of the universe and move on.The story itself is pretty fast-paced and I soon found myself drawn in. While I felt it lost a little steam in its final act (the big bad is battled some sixty pages before the end of the story), it did keep my attention throughout and some of its twists took me by surprise. It also ended very well, wrapping up this phase of the story but leaving a few unanswered threads to be picked up by the sequel. My only real problem with the prose was the amount of repetition. Certain things, like that fact about inner animals dying, are told to the reader over and over and it did feel a bit heavy handed.However, the book's strongest aspect was its characters. All of the protagonists of the story are very strong and likeable, but Bryar Rose is the one who truly stole the show. She's witty, independent and more than capable of holding her own in a fight. While paranormal romance heroines tend to be a bit wet, Bryar Rose was fiery and I loved every moment of her chapters.The only character point that I felt was a bit iffy was the shifter idea of romance. This is a lot like the werewolf imprinting of Twilight. Knox only sees Bryar Rose once and his inner wolf starts howling about mating and having cubs. I know some people like love at first sight but I find it a little creepy. Personal thing, I know, but I just like relationships to feel natural. Imprinting is a bit too close to destiny for my liking.Still, despite my hang-ups, I did enjoy this book. If you like for your fantasy romances to be plot-driven, I'd certainly suggest giving it a go.

[catkin026 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Received a free ebook copy in leu of a review. This hasn't affected my rating or my review.This was an unfortunate book for me, and required two readings before I felt that I could review it in any way. It's one of the reasons why I took so long to write up a review, because even after i finished it for the second time, I still wasn't sure what I felt about this book. I had to re-think it again, take a few days to settle and even at the end of this, I was still not entirely able to organise my thoughts to explain properly what I felt about this book. The beginning of the book, just the first few pages drew me in and made me want to keep on reading. The idea of opening up with the main character in 'group therapy' to help sort out her problem of not following her allocated outline of her fairy tale (known in the novel as a -template-), along with other modern day fairy tale characters, is different. It sets up the entire idea of how this story is set in an alternative world, where it has the features of everything we enjoy now, but has the twist of being inhabited by characters who go through the outline of the old fashioned fairy tales. The main character is supposed to be under the template of Sleeping Beauty, except she doesn't like animals, and would prefer to just past her 18th birthday and be free of all of the constraints. Under the rules of her template, this is when she will fall asleep before being rescued by a -prince-.And this is where the author shines. The book is listed as being a more twisted and dark modern day fairy tale, and the author manages to actually pull this off. It's proven just in the opening, by the interaction between the main character and the leader of the group therapy. The banter back and forth, along with the inner thoughts of the main character who knows she can rely on her best friend, under the template of Cinderella, is only the beginning of a strong start, that continues through for most of the book. It's a credit to the writer that this isn't the issue with the characters, as the main character (Bryar Rose), best friend (Elle), love interest (Knox), and his best friend (Alec) are strong throughout and each have interesting back stories. There is a reason why not only do the four's stories intermingle with each other, but you can see how this would blossom into friendship and romance.I was rooting all the way through, until it fell apart for me. I will try to make this as spoiler free as possible but I may have to touch on certain points of the story in order to make my point clearer. There is a running two issues in this book that Bryar and her friends need to solve, or at least make progress to. One of them ties into her template, and the other is in regards to what makes Bryar believed to be a failing Sleeping Beauty. These two run concurrently, and neither are forgotten for too long that one is pushed completely to the wayside. The author is clearly skilled in this, and Bryar is kick-ass through all of it, but then we come to the third part of it.And it all falls apart. Suddenly, Bryar being realistic, likeable and someone the reader can root for, is thrown to the wayside. Thankfully, the problem isn't that she becomes a damsel in distress and needs to be rescued, but at the same time, it means that it goes to the other extreme. The areas that keep the entire story grounded and believable become a complete X-Men Phoenix and it was at that point that I very carefully put my Kindle down, and walked away. Ii couldn't return to the book to finish it for another week, and even then I was counting down the pages until I could move onto something else. Once I did, I was relieved and immediately buried myself into another book that I knew I would enjoy, and I knew that this was a bad sign. It took several more months before I could return to it, and even then I couldn't figure out how I felt about it. It had a good start, a very promising story, that just lost itself in order to have a fantastic battle at the end. And in the beginning, the fight is brilliant. Bryar is up against the evil villain with just her wits and with what little fighting abilities she has. It's clear that she has a big mountain to climb to win, and I would have felt that this book ended on a high note if she'd barely survived. If she had fought, and by luck and using her head, managed to defeat. Yet instead Bryar wen't into full Power Level, and blasted the villain. There's very little left for me to state about this book, other than it's a promising book, with a brilliant premise that the author manages to carry it off until the very end. I am highly disappointed, and won't be reading any further books of this series. If she starts another one, then i will look into it but won't make it a priority.

[stacyatufi · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I had high hopes for WOLVES AND ROSES, but it didn't live up to my expectations. I actually really enjoyed the concept of WOLVES AND ROSES. For most of the book, things were great. The writing was smooth and the characters developed nicely. Unfortunately at some point things got a little ridiculous.One of my biggest issues started when characters started going off on tirades or started going out of their way to make a snarky comment that really didn't fit the moment. During situations of conflict instead of doing the thing that would fix things right away—even as they mentioned they needed to do x or y—they just continued to talk about doing it instead of doing it. Very frustrating and definitely ruined the flow of the story. It made me want to put the book down and call it a day. Alas I forced myself to keep reading in hopes that it would only last a short time only to be disappointed that it persisted until the end.I really really wanted to love WOLVES AND ROSES. Unfortunately I don't see myself continuing with this series.I gave it 2/5 stars* This book was provided free of charge from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

[thegenreminx · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In Wolves and Roses, I found the idea of the characters being descended from either a shifter, a fairy, or a witch, and having to follow a fairy tale life template to be quite entertaining. Bryar Rose had been slated for a Sleeping Beauty template but since she had yet to fall into those expectations she had to attend a Magicorum Teen Therapy Group until she reached the age of eighteen. If she reached eighteen and had not fulfilled her “destiny” then she would be classified as non-magical and become an everyday boring human. Which was all that she wanted and longed for.Bryar’s entire life has been regulated by her three fairy aunties and in recent times, her boyfriend Prince Philpot. Philpot is not Bryar Rose’s choice for a boyfriend or a fiancé, in fact she has no interest in his marriage ideas. She only tolerates his presence because she has to. When she turns eighteen she planned to kick him to the curb for good, despite what her aunts want. Thankfully Bryar has her best friend to help keep her sane. Bryar and her BFF Elle get through life by having their own guilty secrets or excursions. It is during one of Bryar’s secret excursions that she meets up with Alec and Knox.Alec and Knox are two of the three Wardens in charge of their respective magical race. They are familiar with both Elle and Bryar due to having had them under surveillance for some time and wanted to bring them in to help with a two-thousand-year-old problem. Bryar was suspicious of course, but she knew the opportunity Alec was proposing was too good to pass up and agreed to help them. What Bryar never suspected was that someone else already had plans for her and that her life was actually in grave danger.Bryar would soon realize that she needed to rely on her new acquaintances as well as her best friend in order to figure out why she had been targeted and to what end. As the situation escalates, and Bryar is forced to accept some unpleasant realities, she will have to make some hard choices. If she wanted to make it out of the situation she found herself in alive, she will have to look deep within herself and face the truth that lies there. Otherwise she could lose everything that she holds dear. Including the man who has made his way into her heart.There is so much detail in this story and I really liked that. The main protagonists are still teens so there is definitely a young adult teenage angst type vibe but at the same time there was much more going on with these characters that give them an older feel. I loved the plot twists especially how they applied to Bryar’s character. Parts of the plot were way out there and a little whimsical but given the fairy tale element of this story it was within the realm of reason and didn’t detract from the overall story.I can’t say that the characters were given much depth in this installment but there is more to come in the sequel. My favorite character was Knox and his wolf. His wolf does not have much in the way of dialogue but I love his tenacity for knowing what he wants. Knox is a bit of a broken record with his dialogue but it is mainly because he is trying to convince both himself and his wolf of how things are supposed to be. Bryar was a fun character but I much preferred the sisterhood feelings that I got from her and her bestie. They were a great combination. I also appreciated that there was no insta-love in this story. Sure, there is awareness of the opposite sex and great affection but no overtures of deep soul shaking love.Overall, I really enjoyed reading Wolves and Roses. It was the plot twists that endeared me to this story. I want to know more and see where things go with these characters. There were some pretty cool reveals in Wolves and Roses that are exciting and promise a lot of interesting happenings in the future. This story will absolutely appeal to readers who like spunky young adult characters, enjoy a good twist on fairy tales, and like shape shifters who are all Alpha Male. Wolves and Roses is a wonderful series starter!This review is based on a complimentary book I received from Xpresso Book Tours. It is an honest and voluntary review. The complimentary receipt of it in no way affected my review or rating.