Grade: B
Hotness Level: Blaze
Kink Level: No Kink
Genre: Paranormal , shifter
Published: 8/28/14
Reviewed by Anne
131 pages

Olivia’s boss asks her to make a last minute delivery of papers to his son, Erik, on her way out of town for Christmas holidays.  She’s nervous about seeing Erik, who is not just the boss’ son, but also a co-worker of Olivia’s.  A few month’s ago, before Olivia was working for Erik’s dad, Olivia and Erik shared a kiss, and ever since that day, Erik has been very cold to her.  She doesn’t know what to make of his behavior, so she’s hoping to get in, deliver the papers, and get out.  Unfortunately, she stops by Erik’s place and finds herself in the middle of danger.  The danger comes from both from the shifter beings around Erik’s house, and, apparently, from Erik himself, who is, you got it, also a shifter.

The first half of the story dragged for me.  There was a lot of introspection and it wasn’t clear exactly what was going on.  Once everything was revealed, the story really picked up for me.  I also enjoyed the light paranormal feeling of the story.  There are shifters, but there’s not pages and pages of world building.  The story is pretty focused, and it didn’t need lot of world building, so that worked well.

As I expect with Meljean Brook, Olivia is a strong, intelligent, and self sufficient heroine.  She’s also smart enough to accept help.  It’s one of the things that brings me back to her books again and again.  Erik turns out to be self-sacrificing and considerate, as well as a raving beast. That was a nice combo.  His shifter form was not one I’d read before, so that was nice, too.

This story is written in first person point of view, which is not normally the style Meljean Brook uses.  She does it really well, though.  I sometimes get annoyed when reading first person, but that didn’t happen here.

I’d recommend this story for anyone who enjoys paranormal, and even for readers who generally read contemporary, but could handle a little shape shifting.