This was the first one I received! This was written by the beautiful TriciaDehler, who shared it with me a while back. It was an essay for her English class in which she had to do an evaluation essay on what she deemed to be a good book. For this essay, she chose Property of a Gordon, which I was more than thrilled with. I hope you guys enjoy it! (She got an A on the stunning essay!)

Essay: In a book, you expect the good guy to be the same throughout each novel you read. All protagonists must have good morals, must not be wavered towards the dark side even when tempted, and they will always have accomplices to help guide them towards winning against the antagonist. Since I was a child, protagonists have bored me due to their predictability and tedious personalities, and for those reasons I have put all of my focus onto villains, and Property of a Gordon did not disappoint.

Property of a Gordon is an unpublished book on a website called Wattpad and was written by a woman under the surname TalatheWolf. It takes place in the future, where all supernatural creatures are exposed to the world and under the control of humans. While the vampires are forced to drink blood rations, shifters are fugitives, and the witches are casted off to die, the werewolves are forced to become protectors to the human rulers. The werewolves are constantly kidnapped by humans and forced to fight for the members of castles around the world, and when the main character is running in the woods as a wolf she is captured and thrown into a torture chamber after biting off the finger of one of her captors. After many weeks of being tortured and starved, the prince of this particular castle punishes the torturer and chooses the female protagonist to become his protector, believing that female wolves are more loyal than the males and she will be more inclined to protect him. While she is his protector, their chemistry thickens and the recent arrival of her ex-boyfriend mingles with the string of murders brandishing the castle and threatening Prince Kendall Gordon's life.

Since all protagonists are ordinary, there must be a spectacular villain to stand out amongst the predictability of the main. In this novel, they start off the villain as a romantic. The main's ex lover, who is under the fake alias Nolan, begins in the novel as somebody you least expect as anything less than a romantic conflict between the prince and his protector, but slowly his true identity begins to shine through. He is an unexpected pleasure throughout each page, and it is most certainly enjoyable when his sanity cracks for just a moment and he shows the true malevolence he tries to desperately to hide before he attempts to assassinate the prince. He is a villain of charm and multiple agendas, making him the character you wish to read the most about, and furthering the success of this book.

A villain isn't everything in a book, however, and although the other characters may be predictable they must also be realistic in order to brand this book as worthy to read. The main character, Scar, is the common feminist main character you see a lot of in the newest post apocalyptic novels and Kendall Gordon is the ordinary kind hearted beauty that helps melt the woman's ice cold heart, but it is the background of these characters that make them stand out amongst the normal protagonists. Authors who write werewolf novels rarely know how to write about any real life experiences other than the fictional life of a wolf, which is why I normally think of all werewolf novels as horrendous, but Property of a Gordon didn't do this. Although this book acknowledged the fictional existence of werewolves and spoke about it consistently, the two main protagonists also experienced family problems others suffer from in the real world.

For instance, the main female character had a particularly shocking scene in the novel, where she comes back home after running from the prince to discover that her father had committed suicide in her time away and her mother's own unraveling sanity because of it. Even though topics to this severity do not happen to many, the death of a parent and the insanity of another does occur more than one would like to think about. This scene brings a new light to the protagonist that we hadn't seen before, just as Kendall Gordon's mundane problems with never living up to his family's expectations shows him as more than just a prince ruling over humans and werewolves. It is essential in any book to show light not only to the exciting aspects, but to make these characters authentic and relatable with their realistic problems.

I always state that in order to have a good novel, your characters are the backbone to that, but while I believe them to be the most important, they are not everything. Other than just having interesting characters, you must have scenes that take the character by surprise, and nothing does that as well as a horrific scene that makes your stomach churn. In this novel, after the female main bites the finger off of one of her captor's, she is tortured for weeks in a room littered with helpless werewolves. The gruesome torturing went on for about three chapters, and the author's detail with these particular scenes make me believe that I am experiencing it all first hand. She describes the urine and feces soaked werewolves until the scent burns my nostrils, her description of the small cages holding two too many wolves causes me to shudder with discomfort, and once the author brings up the manner in which this man tortures them I momentarily had to stop reading.

Horrific scenes makes an impact on you that shows that you will not forget this book for years to come, but every novel needs a happy ending to coincide with the darkness that I enjoy in every read of mine. The second to last chapter of the novel ends with the main antagonist, Nolan, firing a gun that was intended for the Prince and you did not discover if Prince Gordon was shot or not. Then, as the last chapter begins, the main female is at a funeral around many people she knows from the castle without the prince in sight. You believe that this story will not have a happy ending for the couple everybody has been hoping joins together, but when she goes to visit the hospital you see the Prince in a hospital gown and only a mere bullet wound. She was at the head guard's funeral, and the last chapter ends with the two of them once again joining together with no intentions of separating again.

To have a successful book, the back bone is the uniqueness of the antagonist, and the authenticity of the characters, but there is also a great need for gruesome scenes to leave a lasting impression, and to contrast the darkness there must be light with a happy ending. It is rare for me to find every criteria applying to a book, but Property of a Gordon was a successful read for all of these reasons and then some.