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Way of the Wolf (Magnetic Magic, #1)

Lindsay Buroker

Start date: February 1, 2025

Finish date: February 28, 2025

Discussion: Book of the Month

Why we're reading this: Voted as our “Most popular books Published in January 2025” February BOM
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* BOM: Group Read History [2025]
By Steph , Serious series addict · 9 posts · 22 views

last updated Aug 30, 2025 12:41AM

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What Members Thought

Mar 12, 2025 Katyana rated it it was ok

Shelves: kindle-unlimited, shapeshifters, uf, meh

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Well, that happened.

I'd probably give it 2.5 stars, if half stars were a thing here. Like a C-/D+ rating, more or less. It wasn't terrible, but it didn't have anything going for it.

First problem is this: after finishing the whole book, I really have no idea what is going on. A lot of things were talked vaguely about, in a hand-wavy kind of way. Some of them in a very loaded way, as if we need to notice that they are Very Important. But like, here's the sum total of what I know from reading this Well, that happened.

I'd probably give it 2.5 stars, if half stars were a thing here. Like a C-/D+ rating, more or less. It wasn't terrible, but it didn't have anything going for it.

First problem is this: after finishing the whole book, I really have no idea what is going on. A lot of things were talked vaguely about, in a hand-wavy kind of way. Some of them in a very loaded way, as if we need to notice that they are Very Important. But like, here's the sum total of what I know from reading this book (and that's the reason this whole thing is in spoiler tags):

Luna is a 46 year old werewolf who quit being a wolf 26 years ago after she killed her boyfriend in a moment of uncontrolled wolfiness. Her mom had high hopes that she'd be the super alpha savior of wolf magic, because she was so strong. But Luna noped out of there and started taking a potion to suppress her wolf nature. She married a complete dumbass human in her quest to be normal - he abused and cheated on her (yes, it is fair to say abused when she told us that he lost his temper if anyone flirted with her so she started wearing shapeless things and closed down to not talk to anyone), and then took off with all their savings account money, including the kids' college fund (and her shithead oldest son blames her, so apples aren't falling far from the tree) - and had 2 boys with him. She lived with his abuse and cheating until, I don't know, one day she couldn't take the cheating anymore so threw his ass out when she saw him looking at photos of him with some rando. That's all the backstory, but one important point here as takeaway: she has shitty taste in men and is a stupid doormat, so her killing her supposedly innocent lover for no reason at all, just in a fit of temper (that's how she describes it), at age 20 is immediately sus.

Dude shows up and is super sketchy. Luna, of course, is interested because of the aforementioned shit taste in men. Her cousins show up out of nowhere after decades and try to kill her. Sketch dude (Duncan) helps fend them off. Other magical beastie things try to kill her. No idea why. Sketch dude finds magical cameras and a magic box hidden in her room. No idea what that's about either. But he wants it. She overhears a phone call with Sketch Dude Duncan where he's talking to her shitface ex (Chad) and it is clear that Shitface Chad hired Sketch Dude Duncan to find and steal the magic box. She kicks Duncan out. Magic box is magic, but her druid friends don't know what it is or does, and no one can open it. It is - unsurprisingly - stolen.

Luna reconnects with the family to find out hey, yo, why are you trying to kill me? Mom is dying and still wants her to be heir. Cousins attacked her because they DON'T want her to be heir, after abandoning them for decades and taking potions to completely reject their magic. And I mean, can you blame them, really? She shouldn't be heir. But she's apparently Super Powerful Wolf and has had other odd blips of magic (visions), so you know and I know that it is going to happen. And the cousins, who are frankly in the right here, are going to have to be villains. They take their next attack way over the top and apparently hire hunters to shoot at the pack. These hunters just shoot at whatever wolf they see, including mom and other members of the family. Luna snaps and murders them, which, again, well deserved. Doesn't murder the cousins who hired them, though, because Luna remains a dumbass.

And no one knows anything about the magic box, nor apparently about the magic glow-eyed things that attacked her. These are all just random things randomly happening all at the same time - Luna's family trying to kill her, her ex hiring people after literal years to steal a Magic Box that his mundane ass shouldn't know anything about, magic monsters trying to murder her for whatever reasons, and weird-ass magic cameras in the corners of her bedroom in the ceiling.

We get no actual information about any of it, and I just don't even care anymore. I don't care what the box is, or who stole it. I don't care about the her dumb family and their dumb nonsense. I don't care about Luna's absolute garbage taste in men - Chad, Duncan - and what that probably means about the young love that she killed way back when. I don't care about Duncan being all sad that Luna is mad he was lying and trying to steal from her (lol, wut? did he imagine that going differently?). And I am certainly not interested in him as a love interest. In fact, my interest level could be measured in the negative double-digits. I don't care about Luna being a 46 year old toddler who not only oddly lets everyone walk all over her, but also ran from her life for 26 years in unshakable insistence that she's a monster...and not, like, someone who obviously needs therapy (which is the reality).

Here's where I bail out in a cloud of Meh and Nope. ...more

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Feb 03, 2025 Steph rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2025, author-웃, series-ongoing, series-book1, sos-bom, series-abandoned-cya, loaner-amz-kindle-unlimited

★½
Well, this was a bust for me, sadly. I didn't like the MC, she fell flat for me. Actually, everyone did, except maybe her intern.

Sublimate/sublimation was only used a dozen or so times, but damn if it didn't feel like it was triple that. Don't know why, but it bugged me, badly.

Spoilers comin' next, y'all ---- stop here if you haven't read it, I'm not blocking anything

"That is the way of the wolf."

There's the human/wolf split yet she's so traumatized by her wolf's past actions that she su ...more

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Jan 04, 2025 Monadh rated it it was amazing

Shelves: slowburn, humor, magic, action, series, uf, second-chance, werewolf, shifter-romance, paranormal-women-s-fiction

A snarky, sublimated werewolf

The premise of this book seems the opposite of exciting, if not downright mundane: Luna Valens, a fortysomething divorcee, lives in a somewhat undesirable area of Seattle in a rental of an apartment complex where she is also the property manager and handywoman. Due to a tragic accident in her youth, she has been sublimating her werewolf side with a potion and has lived the bigger part of her life as a human. She has long since kicked her cheating husband to the curb A snarky, sublimated werewolf

The premise of this book seems the opposite of exciting, if not downright mundane: Luna Valens, a fortysomething divorcee, lives in a somewhat undesirable area of Seattle in a rental of an apartment complex where she is also the property manager and handywoman. Due to a tragic accident in her youth, she has been sublimating her werewolf side with a potion and has lived the bigger part of her life as a human. She has long since kicked her cheating husband to the curb and her two sons have flown the nest. As a single parent she had to skimp and save just to make ends meet. Now she is finally debt-free, but she is starting to question the long-term prospects of her job, so she is trying to save up to buy a modest property of her own in order to make provisions for her old age.
I really liked this background part, how Lindsay Buroker is able to introduce the struggles of every single parent in the US and at the same time unobtrusively combine it with a healthy dose of social criticism.

So, while Luna is simply trying to live her life and attend to the small and big issues of her tenants, things start to happen. For one, there is the gorgeous, if somewhat goofy treasure hunter who has parked his mobile home on the tenant parking lot. Before she can get rid him of him, he proves extremely useful when a small motorcycle gang appears looking to cause trouble. Then the property owners of the apartment complex foist their son – a veritable geek – on her as an intern. With the full moon approaching, Luna realizes that she is out of the sublimating potion and that her usual witch supplier has disappeared without a trace. It’s not only her werewolf magic that is in turmoil, but also her hormones, on account of the silver-pelted Duncan, who tries very hard to get into her bedroom (for all the wrong reasons, as it turns out). If that weren’t enough, some of her werewolf relatives – after over 20 years of radio silence – are trying to contact her, so her hitherto unexciting life is turned upside down and about to get very exciting…

I love that there are now these wonderful UF books out there, featuring relatable, middle-aged FMCs that have to deal with mundane problems, and at the same time they turn into the reluctant heroes of their own story. Lindsay Buroker manages once more to provide diverting reading entertainment with her usual dose of snark: I do love her author’s voice. ...more

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Feb 02, 2025 Sandra rated it really liked it

Shelves: witch-magic-fae, pnr-uf, shifters, kindle-unlimited

Really 3.5 stars

Luna, a sublimated werewolf, handywoman, property manager, had major trauma at 19 and hasn't shifted since. She's now mid forties and the mother of 2 college aged boys. And has a cheating ex-husband. The boys don't know she's a werewolf, but the ex does.

Her old pack don't have anything to do with her, though her mother & aunt keep tabs on her, though Luna doesn't know that.

Mysteries suddenly keep happening, and she doesn't know what is going on.

I do intend to read the next book ...more

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