I totally loved the scientific aspect of this amazing story. NOX was tough to understand as was Koda. I can understand research for the sake of research but naturally the government went to extremes in its uses. Lucas and Dr. Reese were my favorites. They both carried so much baggage that they should have dumped. This story is a must read for any Wilder fan! ( )

I always think I know what'll happen in Wilder stories, and I'm usually surprised at least once. I love that.

This is a pretty weird shifter story (that's good; I don't like the typical kind) and while I found the nuances of Anubis a bit confusing, I didn't let that bother me. I hope there's a second book. The end left me very curious.

This is a violent story, and carnal, and yet the effort to have permission left me thrilled. I enjoyed all the characters. It's a good story. If the descriptions appeal, do read it.

The reason I deducted a star is, in the Kindle edition at least, it desperately needs a line edit. Typos and missing commas and wrong words really pile up by the last few chapters. Lots of readers can ignore that. I'm editing my own book. I can't turn that awareness off. Sometimes they throw me out of the story, and makes me sad. I hope other versions fared better. ( )

[3.4] At the beginning, I was hooked. Mystique and general "why are there werewolf-looking creatures out to pulverize me" chaos? Check. World building? Check. Hot, buff, naked man with temporary memory loss barreling into a house to save his future hubby? Check. The thrill of the chase had me on the edge of my seat, and coupled with Kirt Graves's narration, I was so sure this would be a homerun!

...Or so I thought. It wasn't bad per se, but the execution fell short when this story had so much potential and fell short of my expectations.

Now I have the memory of a goldfish so attempting to go into a detailed explanation of the Anubis, ichor, New World Genetics, etc. after a tiring week would be a recipe for disaster (and to be honest, I can't say I completely understood everything myself LOL), but long story short, you got a group of ambitious scientists harnessing something they don't understand to revive the dead from their slumber with memories intact. Of course nothing could go wrong ( )

Full of twists and turns, unexpected developments, the story kept me on the edge of my seat, and the intensity never waned. That's probably the best feature of this book, and the biggest compliment I can give.

We plunge into the depths right away, and as we go, more and more questions arise and the plot becomes more and more complicated. The world-building is amazing.

There's two plot lines, and we see the events unfold from the 3 main characters' POV. There's Luca and Nox on one side, and Reese on the other. The former duo are the ones who're running, while the military is chasing them along with Reese, who was asked to tag along as a "consultant", since he was the only one of the scientists left alive, who was involved in Nox's case. There. That should be spoiler-free enough. :)

For some reason I enjoyed Reese's side of the story more, even with the medical and scientific mumbo-jumbo. Probably because while I understood Nox's and even Luca's involvement (to some degree) in the case, Reese was a bit of a mystery. I didn't know why he was so important, other than helping the military understand some things about Nox. I kept thinking "Does he have a bigger role in the story than just a scientist? Are we seeing the events from his pov, just to make the story more interesting?" So I didn't really know if he would somehow end up being someone's love interest, or was he involved already in some way more deeply and I couldn't wait to find out.

Nox and Luca's path was more clearer in a way. Except, I don't think I got the answer for the biggest question. There was plenty left, but that one was nagging at me all along and it remained a mystery to me. It's clear the story was crafted with a possible sequel in mind. And yes please! I want a sequel.

There's two things that prevents me to give 5 stars, but I'm not sure either is valid. I think both of those things are just me and not the book. lol

First of all, the whole plot is based on sex (I'm not gonna explain what I mean by that, but let's just say sex is a big part of it), then there are flashbacks of other sexual encounters, then there is UST in the majority of the book, so when the MC's finally getting down to business, I felt like it was too much. For me. And once they started, they couldn't seem to stop. It should've been hot, and I'm sure it was, I honestly couldn't tell you, cuz I skimmed over them. I'm sure if I read this book at any other time, I would've enjoyed it. I stopped a few times to read a few sentences, just to see what I'm missing and it sounded very erotic and animalistic. And they were not long btw.

My other problem is a bit more idiotic, I can admit that much, but it still bothered me. It's hard to explain, so bear with me.
So, you know, in movies when something exciting, or frightening is about to happen, the background sounds/music is increasing in intensity, which indicates the fact that you should get ready for something. (Except if it's a horror and they thriving on scaring the shit out of you, so there isn't any kind of warning). So anyway. In this book, there was a lot of those scenes, but there was no warning. The writing flow was too smooth, or something. One sentence bled into another in the same natural "tone". It's like when you're listening to an audiobook and the narrator doesn't change their tone when they should. I would actually like to listen to the audio, to see/hear how the narrator tackled those scenes. I hope all that made sense.

Overall this book really surprised me. I'm not sure what I expected, but it wasn't this.
4.5 stars rounded down, but it earned a spot among my favorites.
Dear Author, give us the sequel. I also wouldn't mind a short prequel from a certain Doctor's POV or maybe one particular subject's POV. *waggles eyebrows* ( )