Review: Nice story, but less than I'd hoped for.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 2, 2012
Overall, I found Oscar rather disappointing in his own book. I really liked the sharp, snarky guy we met in the first Snow Leopard's series, but his personality didn't really come through in this story. Added to that, I didn't feel like we really got to know Josiah, and much of the story was bogged down with dealing with Lyndon's family, and the story just fell flat for me.Mild Spoilers ahead.The story starts off with Oscar at a gay bar, on his own because he's snuck off while on a trip with his father. The trip to San Antonio was a total bust, and came off as a bit of a plot device; not even Henry and Oscar seemed to know what they were doing there. But Oscar meets Josiah, a wolf shifter working as a bouncer at the bar. This encounter starts off interesting, but Oscar freaks out and runs off. And I was disappointed by how that scene played out, because there wasn't any witty, interesting dialog, and I actually didn't feel much chemistry between our two lead characters.Of course, Josiah knows right away that Oscar is his mate, and follows him back to the hotel where Oscar and Henry are staying. And there's some weirdness as we meet three of the infamous Tavares brothers where they kidnap Henry, but then return him...?Ultimately, the rest is pretty much a cut-and-paste of the first book. Oscar and Josiah go back to the snow leopard home in Colorado, have a bunch of sex, there are life-threatening events, and everyone lives happily ever after.I was equally disappointed that we never found out much about Josiah. Other than meeting a brother and his father (but no mother; does he even HAVE one?), we never find out if he had any career ambitions - beyond being a bouncer, obviously. We don't find out likes and dislikes, favorite foods, hobbies. He's a nice guy, but there's NOTHING distinctive about him. He was actually a little boring.And the chemistry between Josiah and Oscar was almost non-existent. The author fell back on the "they're mates" angle WAY too much, and we never got to see them learn WHY they should love this person so much. The lack of chemistry was reflected in the sex between our two characters; it was well-written, but just not really that exciting.In the end, I felt that the author couldn't carry off Oscar for a whole book. His smart, mouthy personality got watered down, and then buried under the weight of the plot, too many characters, and maybe just the author's own inability to get into Oscar's head.