Title: ⟫ The First and the Last
Author: ⟫ Jesse H. Reign
Rating: ⟫ 5/5
Blurb: ⟫
“Why would I choose, when anyone can see the two of you come as part of a package?”
That’s what she said. Those were the words that changed my life.
Until then Jules and I were friends. Best friends only. Best friends since before we could remember. We had to be. We were the last two wolves born into an ageing pack. Our pack was secretive and a little backward, but we had a great life. Sure, our alpha was a bit of a douche, but all alphas are douches. Everyone knows that. Thank God, Jules and I were both going to be betas.
The night new-girl Storm refused to choose between Jules and I, changed everything. The way I looked at him changed forever. He went from my goof-ball best friend, to being the hottest creature I’d ever seen. At the time I thought it was the end of the world.
It wasn’t the end of the world...It was just the beginning.
Then our first shift happened, and confusion hit harder.
Why was one of us acting distinctly douche-y? And why was the other running a fever and pleading for things only an omega would want?
The First and The Last is a paranormal omegaverse MM romance. It features a bi-awakening that happens during a shared experience with a woman. It contains a dash of knotting, a pinch of gratuitous violence, and a heat that’s hot enough to put your eReader at risk of melting. This story does not contain MPREG.
Review: ⟫ This book was the one that sent me down a Jesse H. Reign rabbit-hole, so I was surprised to find that it was the first foray into PNR.
Sully and Jules were absolutely awesome – they fit together so incredibly well from the beginning and the awful summer that Sully spent without Jules really brought that home almost immediately. The interactions were so honest, so real, that I wondered when the penny was going to drop about their feelings for each other. The introduction of Storm, a female werewolf, could well have led to an epic falling out. Instead, it led to the two of them discovering a whole new dynamic. I was surprised – I didn’t expect things to be quite so explicit between the three of them, but it didn’t take away from the book, or make me feel like it should have been labelled MFM like some other stories have.
Once the two of them were sent away, things got even hotter. And I admit it, I was expecting the dynamics to be the other way around – I don’t know why, I just did. However, I wasn’t disappointed in the slightest – this book got ALL of that right and then some. I loved how the omega/alpha dynamic was explored, with the power shifting between them so that the balance was maintained.
I really enjoyed how things were built up between Jules and Sully – you could almost feel their skin itching as changes began, and then the way they dealt with things afterwards was incredibly hot. I was concerned about how things would go once they went home, but even then I was pretty well satisfied. I’m not quite sure how I feel about Sully’s mother – there is a part of me that feels like she could have been clearer with the boys about what was going on, and sending them away with no information or instruction felt a bit ‘Dumbledore-esque’.
As a final aside, I loved Mrs O’Malley and would have loved to see her fly!
