Review: Wolf Bait & Wolf Bite by Nina West

Title: Wolf Bait & Wolf Bite
By: Nina West
Series: Wolf Cove 1 & 2
My Copy: Ebook from Publisher 
The BookWhisperer's Rating: 

Wolf Bait by Nina West

When life turns to hell, most people talk about running away. Abbi Mitchell actually does it. Determined to escape her humiliating heartbreak and her overbearing mother, Abbi takes a summer job at a resort in Alaska. It's supposed to be four months of snow-capped mountains, peaceful wilderness, and figuring out if she should wait for her lifelong sweetheart to come back, as he has promised he'll do.

Instead, it's Henry Wolf.

Owner of the luxury hotel chain, Henry Wolf is cool and composed, successful with everything he touches, and undeniably beautiful. And for some reason Abbi can't fathom, he wants her—the farm girl from small town, USA with no corporate experience—as his personal assistant.

Abbi scrambles to meet his professional demands while she battles her growing attraction to him. Physical feelings she shouldn't have because he's her boss, because she's way out of her league with him, and because they'll never be reciprocated.

Until they are.

Will Abbi be able to let go of herself—her values, her dreams, and her inhibitions—to give him all that he's demanding of her?

Wolf Bite by Nina West

Isolated in the luxurious Wolf Cove Hotel in Alaska, Abbi Mitchell is thousands of miles away from her family and friends.

In the hands of a predator. Potentially.

After discovering condemning information about the mercurial man who controls her day-to-day work life and, now, her most intimate private life as well, Abbi's not sure she can continue on with... whatever is going on between her and Henry Wolf. Especially when he's about to be thrown into a fiery media circus ring, and she, along with her reputation, will undoubtedly get dragged into it with him.

But breaking things off with the Big Bad Wolf now likely means losing her job and her summer of freedom, and going back to the farm and her controlling mother.

She's not doing that.

Abbi does have something to hold over Henry's head. If he forces her hand. If she has the guts to do what amounts to blackmail.

But will the all-powerful Henry Wolf concede, or will she finally feel his bite?

Wolf Bait and Wolf Bite, the sequel (yes, I and doing two reviews in one,) has me teetering the fence and leaning more towards the love side but I still have my foot hanging over on the confused/what just happened side.

Abbi runs off to work in a soon to be 5 star hotel in Alaska after she finds her fiancé cheating on her.  Hearing that her fiancé wants her to remain a virgin so that their wedding night can be special but that he has needs doesn’t site well so she accepts a landscaping job to just get away from it all.  When she arrives, Abbi finds that there has been a mix up and she is scheduled to work in housekeeping.  While trying to get the hotel manager to fix this mistake, Henry offers Abbi an outside job with solely him, chopping wood.  This job shows Henry what a hard worker Abbi is so instead of having her return to housekeeping, he decides to keep her for himself as his personal assistant.  During this time, the boss/employee line gets crossed multiple times.

So Abbi is a virgin and Henry is a playboy (to say the least.)  Working closely with Henry and watching all the other young adults around her live their lives to the fullest sparks a curious flame in Abbi and she wants to know what it is all about and Henry is the perfect person for said practice.  Wolf Bait builds on their working and sexual relationship and starts setting up a nice relationship between the two.  All is going well until Abbi learns about an allegation bubbling up to the surface and starts to question her relationship with Henry.  End of first book!

I found that Wolf Bite brought a lot more drama to the table than the first book.  Wolf Bait sets the characters and starts building the events but in Wolf Bite it all just explodes.  With the claims against Henry coming out and strict policy to keep their relationship secret, Abbi and Henry hit a rocky road. 

What left me confused was everyone’s love for Abbi.  Her character is great but to have basically every guy she meets in Alaska want her, and at first she is oblivious to it and by the end she is swimming in men, made me wonder how the 180 happened so quickly.  I can understand her starting an emotional and sexual relationship with Henry but then to turn around when she becomes upset and sleep with others seemed very unlike the original Abbi we first met.  I did, however, really love Ronan (loved him tons) and Connor’s characters in this mix though. 

Which brings me to what I liked.  I liked a story about a small town girl just getting sick of life and taking off to find adventure and during this adventure she blossoms into a new person.  She makes her own friends, she learns to stick up for herself, and form her own opinions.  I also loved the relationship that Abbi and Henry have.  Granted, sometimes Henry could be the biggest arse in the world to Abbi and that wasn’t cool, but they still worked together (as a couple and actual boss/employee.)  I felt that the break West gave Abbi and Henry in Wolf Bite helped Abbi come into her own in many ways (even though it involved Michael, Ronan, and Connor – which I felt was excessive) and she started to become a self-thinking adult.

The second book leaves us knowing that there is going to be a third book in this series and so far it seems like there is going to be more drama. I will say that it has hooked me enough to mark my calendar for its release.