I thought that this book had great potential and with just a bit... more... it could have been great.

I really enjoyed the FMC and I was excited to see how she would manage the blows and conflicts that came her way at the beginning of the book. She was a spoiled Alpha's daughter who had everything she wanted, and in the blink of an eye, her father's life is taken in front of her. While we did experience some grief as her world crashed down around her, I do wish that the author would have fleshed out the heartbreak. The world goes on yes, but with the way that her life got flipped upside down, it felt like the FMC moved on from the loss of her father a bit too quickly. 

Our MMC.... He checks off boxes. That's kind of it. He feels like a trope checklist with not much depth. I didn't feel the tension or chemistry between our characters and he just comes across like a brick wall. He has a few moments where you start to see character development, an MMC with a life of his own, and then it slips out of your fingers as he regresses back into the trope checklist. 

I thought the author was inspired by having past lives and memories be woven into the story. Yet again, I wish that it was more fleshed out. I wish that we got to experience the characters a bit more and see how those unlocked memories began to cause shifts within our FMC. She went from spoiled brat to Alpha warrior just a bit too quick for my tastes. The lack of development with the past lives caused them to become unremarkable. I forgot the names of the lives just as soon as they were introduced, leaving me wondering what impact they truly have on the story  if at all. The dreams were disjointed and disconnected from the rest of the story until the "big plot twist" at the end, but even then it wasn't enough to pull it back together in a satisfying way. 

The wrap up of the story left much to be desired. It feels very "female empowerment" with a leader who shouldn't be a leader. In this world, women are meant for nothing more than mating and having children. They aren't on the council and they have to defer to their mates, or at least that's how I understood it. Our FMC was never raised with the expectation of being a leader. She had no skills outside of fashion and shopping, and suddenly she is an Alpha and has a pack to take care of. She makes many unpopular decisions that seems to alienate her pack members and they are told to basically, get over it. It feels like the writer had an agenda here, which is fine, but didn't write the characters correctly to back it up. 

Overall, It was okay. It had pacing issues, the world building needs some work, the editing could have been a little neater, and the characters needed to be fleshed out. But, I did enjoy the store at the base of it, despite the issues.