Review: Hot read plus a great story
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 26, 2014
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.When I first saw the synopsis for Bear with Me by Miranda Stowe, I expected a hot read about some wild shifter sex. I got that but I also got so much more. Bear with Me is also a surprisingly sweet book about friends becoming lovers.Rhea Griffin is a jaguar shape shifter who is about to enter her mating heat. There is an injection available that will help her avoid the mating compulsion but she still invites her best friend Brick Lowery over to keep her company while she is confined. Rhea doesn’t know that Brick has been secretly in love with her for forever. She also doesn’t know that the injection she received is a dud until it’s too late and she is caught in the mating heat’s clutches. Now Rhea is in agony and needs sex, a lot of sex.Brick can’t stand to see Rhea in agony, but he wants her to want him for himself not because she is in heat. Circumstances force him to make choices he might not otherwise have made. Brick just hopes that Rhea doesn’t hate him for forcing her into something she might not have wanted.I loved the chemistry and connection between Brick and Rhea. They were best friends before they were lovers and this makes their relationship believable. Brick is a smart-ass but Rhea loves that about him and she appreciates how he makes her laugh. I appreciated how each one was concerned about the other’s feelings which made them a couple I could cheer for.Now the sex is hot, hot, and hot. Ms. Stowe was able to create steamy, hot, animalistic loving while still injecting humor into the story. I would find myself laughing at Rhea and Brick’s antics one minute and fanning myself off the next minute. Bear with Me took the concept of shifter mating season to a whole different level and it made me yearn to be a shifter.Bear with Me is the fifth book in Ms. Stowe’s Half-Breed Shifter series but you don’t have to have read the others to enjoy this one. I hadn’t read the others but had no difficulty following along. Bear with Me does offer an HEA so you will finish this quick read feeling satisfied. I just enjoyed this one so much that I think I’m going to have to go back and read the others.