Review: Very Different and Excellent
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 27, 2012
The concept of the mate / soulmate is found throughout the werewolf genre - in fact it crosses into other shape shifting genres as well. It is an interesting idea, as real wolves do mate for life and have an unbreakable bond - indeed, should one of the pair die, the other may soon follow in death from grief. This book is very different from most werewolf books - and supernatural books in general - in that it asks two rather fascinating questions that are a spin on the soul mate concept:What happens when two best friends from early childhood, essentially siblings, discover that they are soul mates, meant to be in a lifelong romantic relationship?andWhat if both partners are the same sex and up until this moment have been exclusively straight, not even thinking of being with another man?"Love Bites" actually caused me to sit around and ponder these questions regarding my life. Assuming I was not already married, as I am, what would I do if my best friend turned out to be my soul mate and said best friend is also a guy? After quite a while of thinking about this, my answer was "I haven't got a clue."Fortunately, Ryder and Tucker in the book do have a clue (otherwise there wouldn't really be a story, right?). Since they have both been turned into werewolves, they KNOW as a werewolf does that they are a pair, whereas humans generally hope they are but most of the time don't really know (hence our ridiculously high divorce/break up rate). How they deal with this is the gist of the book.In fact, the storyline regarding werewolves could be looked at as being superfluous (except for the certainty needed to know they are mates). As a supernatural tale, it also works quite well. There are a whole host of paranormal creatures throughout the book, some nice, some, not so much. They are very entertaining. There are also several very determined and essentially evil humans who fuel the plot for the second half of the bookI really liked the two MCs. They're decent guys and you cheer on their relationship. You also hope they survive the book. And towards the end a third character is added, who would likely be the focus of a sequel, which I hope there is. Be aware, that there is a lot of M/M sex here, so if you're squeamish, this is not the book for you. I thought the sex scenes actually fueled and complemented the story, as opposed to many books where sex is just an excuse for running out of plot. Or dialogue. Or both.