Review: More a Purr Than a Roar
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 3, 2012
Niki Harris is a were-cougar who doesn't want to spend another Christmas Day alone.  Sitting in a bar on Christmas Eve, she's hoping to find either a fight or someone to keep her company for the night.  As she's about to beat a relentless drunkard to a pulp, a sexy male cougar steps in to handle the situation.  Niki and Dean scent each other, the sparks fly, and they head out to see how loud they can make each other purr.** May Contain Spoilers **I like that Niki isn't a pushover and Dean sounds like a hunk.  The author has a very readable writing style that's simple to read but is still intelligently formed.  The story is relatively well edited, with the random wrong or missing word here or there.  This story seems like a setup for what could be a good series of stories to come.  As of the writing of this review, the book is listed in the Erotica category, but be aware that this is pretty sedate in comparison to many other paranormal erotica stories I've read.  This is probably supposed to be more along the lines of romantica.  The sex scene is explicit but not raunchy.In the end, this story fell somewhere between "OK" and "I like it" for me.  I love shapeshifter romance and erotic romance stories, but they don't typically work as well, to me anyway, in shorter stories.  Coming in at about 16 paperback pages (296 locations), this little eBook lacks some of my favorite parts:  the interaction between the characters and their beasts, the struggle for dominance between two weres and the ultimate submission of the female, and the Alpha-male hero.  There were also several questions that remain unanswered at the end of the story.  As this is the prequel for two books that will be out sometime later in 2012, I assume the follow-on books will explain some of the things that were left open in this story.This is a short story, so there's not a lot of character development - I don't recall even learning the hero's last name.  If you read this, you must accept the "I can scent that you are my mate; take me, I'm yours" concept.  I accepted this, but I still expected more chemistry between the two shifters.  One pet peeve I have is the non-use of a condom.  I assume that going without a raincoat is supposed to be part of the mating ritual, but the reader never knows this for sure.  Every reader is different, but I'm a stickler for a condom unless the disuse of it somehow plays into the plot.As I mentioned, I do like shapeshifter stories so I might check out the other books when they're available.  For now, this story is probably a 3.5 and normally I'd round up, but this isn't a 4 to me.