The Midnight Pack by Jasmine Kuliasha

TL;DR: Not a winner for me, this was very flat.
Source: NetGalley – Thank you to the publisher!!

Plot: Jericho goes walking to find a rabid animal and surprise, surprise is chased down by Not-A-Werewolf-Wink-Wink Benjamin.
Characters: The screen I read this on had more interesting qualities than these characters.
Setting: This is set in the woods, with an over the top house. It was… there.
Fantasy: This is Urban Fantasy at it’s most boiled down. Werewolves in the ‘real’ world and Jericho is meant to be discovering it.

Summary:

Jericho James is in over her head. 

She’s a Private Investigator famed for debunking mythical creature sightings, and she expects her latest case in Stillbridge, Maine to be just another instance of “town who cried wolf.” But instead of finding a poorly judged animal in the Northeastern woods, Jericho discovers a family of reclusive scientists. Handsome scientists, no less, working on a cure for a mystery virus.

Intrigued by the virus and utterly captivated by Benjamin–a man with cheekbones that must have been chiseled by God himself–Jericho finds she’s dying to learn more about the family and their work. 

And when she accidentally discovers the family’s secret, she might just get her wish. 

Thoughts:

This one was a big disappointment for me. I’ve been a long time fan of detective urban fantasy novels. That is one of the many genres I grew up reading, thanks Walmart book section. So seeing a new one getting released? I was in!

Unfortunately this was definitely not it. Jericho is a private investigator? Possibly, we don’t actually know if she carries a license and I suspect she isn’t. She is called in to investigate a gnarly death after a woman is mauled by a ‘bear’ in the woods. Jericho happily skips off with little to no protection into the woods to look for this bear and is, surprising no one, chased by a strange animal into the mysterious arms of Benjamin. This of course is going to be our love interest, who for all story beats and purposes is a ‘cinnamon roll with a secret’. Bet you can guess the secret!

The mystery is pretty easy to solve from here. There are werewolves, there is a mystery, a big McMansion that of course our men built themselves, a big library, a beautiful garden, etc. The story attempts to make some parallels between Wendigos and Werewolves, which I… didn’t care for. While it looks like the author got the surface level lore somewhat correct, the parallels between the two especially when you take into context the rest of the book and it’s approach to werewolves, is uncomfortable. As an aside as well, these are some of the most unaware werewolves I’ve ever read about. Murder not far from their house? Eh, it’s a bear, never mind that they don’t see any bears.

I could go on and on about the holes and issues I had with his but we’ll end here. Just like Benjamin and his dad Kermit seem to have a large library but don’t actually read the books (especially on bears), this might be one I think you can skip. It definitely wasn’t for me.