BEAST BEHAVING BADLY
The Pride Series
Shelly Laurenston
Kensington Publishing Corp.
Kensington
March 4, 2013 reprint edition (originally 2010)
E-Book and Mass Market Paperback, 320 pages
E-Galley provided by publisher via NetGalley.com for review purposes. No remuneration was exchanged and all opinions expressed herein are my own unless otherwise noted.
Some men just have more to offer. Like hard-muscled, shape-shifting Bo Novikov—part polar bear, part lion, pure alpha…
Ten years after Blayne Thorpe first encountered Bo Novikov, she still can’t get the smooth-talking shifter out of her head. Now he’s shadowing her in New York—all seven-plus feet of him—determined to protect her from stalkers who want to use her in shifter dogfights. Even if he has to drag her off to an isolated Maine town where the only neighbors are other bears almost as crazy as he is…
Let sleeping dogs lie. Bo knows it’s good advice, but he can’t leave Blayne be. Blame it on her sweet sexiness—or his hunch that there’s more to this little wolfdog than meets the eye. Blayne has depths he hasn’t yet begun to fathom—much as he’d like to. She may insist Bo’s nothing but a pain in her delectable behind, but polar bears have patience in spades. Soon she’ll realize how good they can be together. And when she does, animal instinct tells him it’ll be worth the wait… NetGalley.com
MY TAKE
"Wild" characters:Bo -- scary, OCD and so good looking Lion/Polar Bear mix
Blayne -- Scattered, ADHD and beautiful wolf/dog hybrid.
These two make for an explosive couple dashing in and out of danger and in and out of bed. He needs a prozac and she needs some ritalin. Unfortunately as shifters neither drug will work. But if it did it would take what's unique and fun and turn it into a yawn fest. This series is great fun; and not at all serious - even when people get killed.
Especially when humans are killed.
This is a strange world, purely fantastical: some humans know about shifters and others don't seem to. Laurentson's world is populated by many shifters and fantasy high rises containing personal Olympic-size swimming pools for polar bear/lion shifter hockey players to swim in. There's magic in what the critters are, and there is some evidence that someone can cloak things in magic alla Shangri-la.
It's what we called a "mad-cap" romantic comedy when I was growing up -- like a sit-com or like mixing a Stephanie Plum novel with a Hockey Movie. There's a bit more sex than that though. Laurentson is a funny writer with lots of clever snark.
(Mad-Cap: amusingly eccentric • done or thought up without considering the consequences; crazy or reckless.)
There are a lot of characters here and I found it hard to keep track of who the villains were and who was fighting with or allied to whom. This book is well into the line-up of an established series. So, I don't advise beginning here. But the plotting and such doesn't really seem all that important to the book. What is important is the way the main characters in this book interact with each other and the supporting characters.
Bo and Blayne are the best defined characters. Bo is mean on the ice and where Blayne and a few others are concerned, considerably nicer off it. I would love to have him come over to my place and CLEAN! He's a little OCD in that regard. Blayne is almost Forest Gump-like in her simple and sweet way of looking at the world; sometimes she seems rather childlike. She's also quite accident prone, and disorganized; if it were 70 years ago she might be Lucille Ball.
I have enjoyed other books in this series more as far as the sexy times go. Here there's a big difference between the characters' species sizes and, except for her long legs, physical size in human form as well. That never really appeals to me; I spend too much time thinking about the icky mechanics of it (But wait how can her foot be there?) .
It's pure silly without pretensions to literature. I enjoy them in that way -- like ice cream at the beach or cotton candy at the circus; marshmallow fluff for a tough day.
Recommend for the silly and flirty fun. Do you have to be in a certain mood for a silly book?
EXCERPT
AMAZON
BARNES AND NOBLE
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