Review: Another win from Jennifer Blackstream!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 19, 2013
Ana is a skinwalker who's lost her fox skin.  She is forced to walk the earth in her human form for two years.  She attempts to heal her fur but when nothing works something snaps and she starts stealing the skins of other skinwalkers in a desperate effort to gain back the freedom she's lost.  She hopes to simply slip into their skins and pick up their lives but time after time it doesn't work.  She wants to return the skins to their owners but can't give up on the hope that eventually she will find a spell that will work on one of the skins and make it hers.Brec is a selkie who struggles with his place in the world.  He loves being a selkie but longs for the action and glory of being a warrior.  The gods blessed him with the gift of healing, not killing and his position rubs him wrong.  He cannot find a mate because the female selkies value the safety a warrior can provide, not the gentle passive attributes of a healer.When Ana steals Brec's skin, there is no doubt that she is a criminal.  He stays long enough to discover not only her crimes against other skinwalkers but the unbelievably painful reason behind them.I am going to try and be professional and not gush like a teen fan.  Jennifer Blackstream is proving herself to be a major new voice in the paranormal romance scene.  Her plots are original and fresh.  Her characters are flawed just enough to be real.  Aphrodite's Hunt is my favorite erotic paranormal romance for last year and this book was equally great.  Under His Skin had less explicit sex scenes but there was electric sizzle between Ana and Brec on every page.  There is just the right amount of build so that when they do come together about 65% of the way through the story, it is a relief but not in that "you've been yelling at them to get to it already for 100 pages" sort of way.  Their relationship progression feels natural.Every scene pushed the story forward and the characters together.  The story was tight with nothing seeming superfluous or slow. It is hard to forgive Ana for her wrong doing, and even wonder why a person who had experienced such loss would wish that on others of her kind.  Even though the reader is not kept in the dark about her motivations, the book is written so that Brec's reactions to her make perfect sense. Both Ana and Brec redeem themselves and fall in love along the way.Under His Skin will entertain and delight those of you who like shapeshifter type books but are bored with the tired werewolf plots.I was given a copy of this book in exchange for a review on Satin Sheets Romance Review Blog.