Wild Sign (Alpha and Omega, #6)

by Patricia Briggs

Mated werewolves Charles Cornick and Anna Latham must discover what could make an entire community disappear--before it's too late--in this thrilling entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling Alpha and Omega series.

In the wilds of the Northern California mountains, all the inhabitants of a small town have gone missing. It's as if the people picked up and left their possessions behind. With a mystery on their hands and no jurisdiction on private property, the FBI dumps the whole problem in the lap of the land owner, Aspen Creek, Inc.--aka the business organization of the Marrok's pack.

Somehow, the pack of the Wolf Who Rules is connected to a group of vanished people. Werewolves Charles Cornick and Anna Latham are tasked with investigating, and soon find that a deserted town is the least of the challenges they face.

Death sings in the forest, and when it calls, Charles and Anna must answer. Something has awakened in the heart of the California mountains, something old and dangerous--and it has met werewolves before.

• ISBN10: 0440001587
• ISBN13: 9780440001584
• Publish Date: 16 March 2021
• Publish Status: Remaindered
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Ace Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 368
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780440001584

Reviews

[booksandcats]

This was so intense to read, I couldn't put it down! And there is so much to unpack! First off, much of the plot almost felt horror-like, with people disappearing and the general mood always keeping the reader on edge, it's definitely not an easy, happy read but an intense experience (that is very much worth it!)

Anna and Charles get approached by the FBI, who seem to know who they are now suddenly (drama for the future?) and are asked to find out about an entire settlement that seemed to have gone missing. At the same time, something is happening to Leah and no one knows why or what, because as it turns out, no one but Bran and the mysterious Sherwood Post know anything about her past. So Anna and Charles go find out what happen and what they discover is absolutely mind blowing.

I love the way Anna and Charles are and interract, it just brings me joy to read books by Patricia Briggs and to read about mature, intelligent, smart, funny and badass characters! It's so much fun!

The backstory we get on Leah is heartbreaking and it makes the reader feel with her in a way that we haven't in all of the books so far. I really don't understand Bran and how he handled all of this and I like how Anna and Charles both call him out for it and I am so looking forward to seeing how all of them deal with this brand new situation.

Ps: the little cameo of Coyote was really nice and funny!

[Danielle Ackley-McPhail]

Never a disappointment

There is only one author that can lure me to buy a book these days. Patricia Briggs is a master at her craft and has built a world I eagerly visit, a world with brutal truth and sting characters that come alive on the page...every one of them. Thank you!

[Berls]

I fell behind (again) but at least I managed to get in the most recent Alpha and Omega before the release of the next Mercy Thompson book! Even though they are technically separate series, I've come to view them as intertwined and essential to each other. For example, there were some references to Mercy and her heritage in this book that you really wouldn't understand without having read her series. That said, Anna and Charles really are my favorite so it was a real treat to be back with them.

The plot for this book was pretty disturbing, though. Imagine Roanoke, disturbing. An entire town of people... no, witches!... up and disappears. That was creepy to read about in high school, but for it to happen in our modern times of cell phones, etc is downright chilling. And the more Anna and Charles, along with Tag uncover, the creepier things get. I think it's really disturbing the way that magic and music are linked -- I usually enjoy the role of music in the Anna and Charles series but in this one it was a bit stolen as well. Also, I think there should be trigger warnings for rape and child death. Yeah, it gets dark.

That said, it was a real treat to finally get to learn more about Leah. She's always been the evil / not-so-evil stepmother in my mind. Like she's not a bad person, but gah she was awful to Mercy and Charles growing up and I don't know that this necessarily forgives that history, but it does give another lense for understanding her and yeah, I both feel sorry for her and think she's one tough cookie.

And the ending! Um whoa we have some interesting things coming for sure. Hopefully in Mercy's book (coming in August, so just a couple months to wait... the benefit of falling behind, less of a wait LOL!).

The narration is okay for me. Holter Graham really delivers a solid performance but I do find myself wishing he were partnered with a female narrator as his female voices are slightly lacking. Not at all enough to actually hurt the performance, but I just feel like if it were a partnered narration it would be a home run performance, if that makes sense. I will absolutely continue listening!

[Quirky Cat]

I received a copy of Wild Sign in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Yes! It's time for fans to sit down and read the sixth novel in Patricia Briggs' Alpha & Omega series: Wild Signs. This is by far the book I've been most looking forward to this month, and I am so excited to have read it.

Deep in the wilds, one small (and illegal) town has gone missing. Since they were in the middle of pack property, that makes their disappearance a pack problem. More specifically, it makes it Charles and Anna's problem.

It is a good thing that the supernaturals of this world have set out to solve what has happened, for there is no way that human law could have stood a chance. What is lurking in those woods is very old, and very, very dangerous. Those that know of it know better than to speak of it, and they certainly know better than to sing about it.

“As the daughter of a lawyer, Anna's natural inclination was to respect the law.”

My biggest regret about reading Wild Sign is that it's over, and now I must play the waiting game all over again. Wild Sign was an intense and thrilling read, as were all of the other novels in this series (as well as Mercy's series, obviously).

I love all of the wolves in Patricia Briggs' world, so I will always greedily read anything she writes about them. Be it in the form of Mercy's series, or Anna and Charles'. Naturally, that meant that Wild Sign was an automatic must-read for me.

It is a novel that did not disappoint. I absolutely adored the way the monster in this novel was introduced. No, that's actually an understatement. Everything about this being, from their first introduction to the aesthetic and way Briggs laid out the history was so horrifying and compelling. It's impossible to look away.

It also fits in so nicely with what we know of Charles and Anna. Thematically, it was all very appropriate. Though it did dredge up some of the worst moments from Anna's past – so for those readers out there who have a bit of trouble with those points, please consider yourselves warned.

“Anna would much rather be curled up with him in front of the fire or eating something one or the other of them had cooked.”

What's more, there's more than just that main plot (and threat) going on within these pages. There is a very human element, and I mean that in the most literal sense possible. The FBI are involved and I'm anxious to see where that leads.

Likewise, there are hints dropped about other characters over the course of Wild Sign, and I'm simply dying to see how all of that is going to unfold. Especially that major reveal at the end of the book. Gah! I wonder how long we'll have to wait to find out more? Either way, I'm sure it will be worth the wait.

Check out more reviews over at Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

[EBookObsessed]

Anna and Charles are one of my favorite paranormal couples. This story was amazing and so tension filled. Wild Signs will also usher in some changes to the series.

In Wild Signs, the FBI come knocking on Charles and Anna’s door. Literally. Not Charles and Anna Smith’s but Charles and Anna Cornick’s door in Aspen Creek, Montana. Special Agents Leslie Fisher and Craig Goldstein are back and they are hoping that they can persuade the werewolves to form a partnership with the U.S. Government. They know they blew it with the fae and they aren’t willing to trust vampires. They are hoping to form a mutual aid alliance with the packs. They came to Charles and Anna rather than Adam Hauptman because Agent Goldstein is convinced that Anna is the elusive Marrok who leads the wolves since they noticed that several occasions the werewolves, including Charles, do whatever she asks. Even when Bran walks in with his sheepish smile and looking like a meek college kid and Anna tells them flat out that Bran is “He Who Rules the Wolves,” they don’t seem to believe her. I always wondered what would happen if the government knew about the Marrok since you know there will be people who fear his control over all the wolves and those who want to control the man who controls all the wolves. Will this mistake put a target on Anna’s back. Even Anna notes, “she contemplated the two FBI agents and wondered what this visit was about to change in their world.”

The FBI come to Charles and Anna for help with a missing settlement. About 40 people set up a little town in the middle of the forest which is partially federal land but mostly belonging to a company called Aspen Creek Inc. and before that it belonged to Leah Fenwood Cornick. While Bran isn’t willing to trust the government just yet, if at all, he does send Charles, Anna and Tag to investigate. Before they leave he tells them the story of when he first found and mated Leah which is far from a happy boy-meets-girl story. Bran came across Leah and Sherwood Post, both half dead, escaping from something which killed Leah’s entire settlement about 200 years ago. Sherwood thought he killed it but he wasn’t 100 percent certain whether it was dead or just wounded.

They find the abandoned settlement and end up with more questions then when they started. There are some hints that they were preparing to abandon the camp but also clear indication that they left everything behind. So did they walk away willing or not? Are they alive or not? It seems that this settlement isn’t just an average bunch of people wanting to get away from the stress of modern technology since there is there is the lingering magic of white witches in many of the tents and buildings. Were these witches up to something or were they the target of the entity that Sherwood and Leah faced or were they simply attacked by a coven of black witches?

And when they find a little amphitheater with neglected and abandoned instruments, Anna picks up an instrument and plays a song only to become the new focus of an entity she calls “The Singer in the Woods.” Charles has to solve this mystery of what happened to the people of “Wild Signs,” what this Singer is and more importantly, how to kill it because it doesn’t want to let Anna go.

This was a great story. I was so stressed out about this Singer’s hold on Anna and what happened to the witches. We also get a lot more information about Bran and Leah. We know from Mercy’s books that Leah was never a fan of Mercy and treated her harshly when she was growing up in the Marrok’s pack. We also knew that she was never friendly towards Charles or Samuel. But in the last few books, we see a little more into the person behind this cold, unfriendly woman and in Wild Signs we learn what brought her to that point. I think we will see changes in their relationship in future stories.

One thing I really liked in this story is that Brother Wolf has taken to heart the fact that Bran never learned to speak Blue Jay Woman’s language so they never really communicated verbally before she died giving birth to Charles and how Bran lamented the stories they didn’t get to share. Brother Wolf wants to be part of the relationship with their mate Anna. In this story, Brother Wolf has become quite the Chatty Cathy with Anna. Where he used to communicate with Charles with simple pictures and feelings, he now has conversations with both Charles and Anna.

There is also something else which happens at the very end which is going to change Anna and Charles’ relationship significantly and which I am not going to tell you about at all. So grab your copy and get reading!

This story is going to bring many changes to this series, good and bad, but Patricia Briggs has already announced that Soul Taken will be the next book and it will be Mercy Thompson novel. What? This is why fans become fanatical…that means it will be at least two years before we come back to Anna and Charles to find out what happened between them after the ending of Wild Signs.

I already wanted to do a Mercy Thompson series re-read and now I am really going to have to take time for it.

See more at EBookObsessed.com