Review: Another one bites the dust
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 09 3, 2013
I like shifter novels and when I used Amazon's Look Inside feature, I was really looking forward to reading this one.Within the first few pages, after I noticed the bad editing, I decided to overlook it to see if the story would make up for it.  When I reached page 13 and read how her womb spasmed and her panties became soaked within five minutes of meeting David, I almost gave up of any hope of Lisa and David being permitted a 'getting to know you' relationship before sex, but again decided to wait and see how the story played out.  However, by page 30 I knew I was returning this one.Instead of being written as a responsible mature professional, as a teacher of young teenagers, Lisa was portrayed with the attitude and mannerisms of a teenager herself.  In fact there was no development of any of the characters.  Although the story could have been a good one, the problems besides bad editing were:MAJOR SPOILERS1.  As this is the only book for this series (is that even the right word for one book so far?) there was no background information for this town or the bear culture.2.  When David comes to pick up Lisa for their date, she tells him she can't date him, but barely 5 minutes later they're in her bedroom going at it hot and heavy.3.  No back story on Ben's mother, how she died, or why/how Tina became his stepmother, particularly when we find out at the end that his father never even married her.  Since Ben says on page 9 that Tina hates his father being able to shift into a bear, I took that to mean that she's human so I wondered how she was able to leave at the end of the book without anyone talking about what's to stop her (particularly a vindictive piece of work like her) from telling other humans about shifters.4.  April is hanging all over David at his family gathering and he isn't even written as saying or doing anything to stop her.  It's mentioned that he doesn't want her attentions, but nowhere does it actually state he flat out tells her to leave him alone, or making her quit touching him.  Even though he didn't know how to tell Lisa something about bears, he shouldn't have stayed away from her, much less let another woman kiss and touch him in front of her.5.  David's problem at that party was ... "He had been more worried about Lisa's reaction when she found out what his bear's bite would do to her. That, combined with his fears of her not surviving the transformation are what kept him away from her."  But later Lisa's bear (who was given to her directly by the Great Mother Bear in the hospital) says ... "Great Mother Bear knew her bears needed mates. Many found have found their mates among the humans. If it is a true mating, Mother Bear gifts the human with a bear spirit. Our mate's bear knew you were mate, but his bear can't mate with human."  David's version of how she becomes a shifter and what Lisa was told are two different things.  Incidentally, the typo is from the book, not mine.5. April is written as patently stupid for, almost proudly, telling Lisa in front of the police chief no less, that she was the one who ran her off the road and burned her house down.  Of course any reader with a lick of sense already knew who was the perpetrator at the first mention of danger to Lisa.  When Todd arrested April and started to take her away I kept waiting for Lisa to tell him Tina was April's little house burning helper, since she saw and heard her, but she didn't then or later.6.  Lisa tells David she's pregnant and he didn't even show one iota of emotion or thoughts  about it.  I think he would have shown more emotion if she said she had to go get groceries or something.All in all, this story needed to be about 100 pages longer, with a much more descriptive background and plot and smarter villains.  It also could use either a different author or Ms. Rachels taking several writing courses and rewriting this piece of indifference with more thought and emotion.