Aria (no last name), aka Anna, aka Lucienne Reiner, aka Alese diReinardus, a wehrwölfe princess, leaves her home in Carantia to travel with her guardian to America. Her guardian is killed before she learns her true identity and the reason they have journeyed across the ocean in search of her lost relations. Alone and unprotected, she is quickly captured by ruthless men who put her up as a prize in a card game in San Francisco.

Cort Renier is the gentleman card player who wins Aria. Only, Cort is no gentleman. He’s a loup-garou from the Louisianna bayou who changed his life and his luck after being rejected and humiliated by a sophisticated New Orleans female loup-garou. Learning Aria/Anna may be the missing heir to his former lover’s aristocratic family, Cort is determined to seek revenge.

Aria’s wild nature isn’t conducive to Cort’s plan to flaunt the debutante before the ones who deem him lower than dirt. He seeks the aid of friends to help Aria’s transformation. Aria loves being a werewolf and can’t understand why Cort denies his nature and wants her to deny hers. She is strong-willed but acquiesces to Cort’s wishes because she wants to please him.

Cort’s long-time friend, Yuri, has plans of his own. Years ago, he helped the Baron Di Reinardus in his failed plot to secure the Carantia throne. Now, whether or not he wants to, Yuri becomes involved in the power-hungry wehrwölfe’s plot to take Aria as his bride and overthrow the Carantia’s pretender king.

Everything runs amuck when Cort realizes that he loves Aria and no longer wants to use her for revenge, but wants to reunite her with her lost family in New Orleans because he believes it’s best for her. Yuri betrays Cort and Aria is captured by Di Reinardus. But, Aria isn’t going to let anyone determine her future, except her.

This paranormal historical set in 1882 was difficult to follow during the first third of the book due to flip-flopping of the heroine’s various aliases. It was difficult to trudge through all the identities and keep track of the story. When a secondary character surmises that Aria/Anna is likely Lucienne/Alese’s twin, I sighed in relief. Although I had guessed this, it eased my frustration when the author finally decided to clear up the confusion. IMHO, it’s okay to confuse the characters, but never the reader.

Now, Lucienne/Alese becomes a loose thread. It would have been nice if the author had tied that plot point into a tight little ball instead of leaving it hanging. Maybe she plans another story later, but I don’t like loose ends. They can unravel a plot.

I did like the author’s crisp, clear voice and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to read her story. For me, historicals can be a bit dry because of lengthy, over-explanations of the customs or habits of that time period. Although those details might be interesting to history buffs, to a busy reader like me it’s tedious chaff to swallow in order to get back to the story. Reading Luck of the Wolf, I choked only once on such instance—when the story diverted into great descriptions of women’s fashion, corsets and bustles and layers upon layers of clothing that had me running to do laundry before I collapsed beneath the mountain of voluminous clothes.

For the most part, I connected with the main characters and rooted for Cort and Aria’s happily ever after. The paranormal kick to this Pygmalion plot was a definite plus to the story line but failed to captivate me like I’d hoped. I want to become so lost in the reading so that I can’t put a book down until the end no matter what. That didn’t happen with Luck of the Wolf, although I did continue to pick it up in between loads of laundry.

Reviewed by: Kristal