Willow and the Wolf by Elizabeth Kelly (The Shifters #1)
Released: May 31, 2015
Paranormal Romance
Self Published
Reviewed by Mandi
I like to pick up shifter books and it had been a while since I read one so I accepted this review request. This is a very light-hearted paranormal story that didn’t do a lot for me. Malcolm is a wolf shifter who runs a security firm for paranormals. They can hire him and his staff for extra protection if they feel they need it. Malcolm hires a human secretary named Willow. She is very enthusiastic (very) and is excited to work for shifters to learn more about them. Malcolm has an insta-lust reaction to Willow, but he doesn’t like to date humans because they are small and fragile.
Willow fits in well in the office, and she helps with a case where a client has had some violence and things breaking in their warehouse. Willow can also see ghosts, and she helps them cross over when they are ready to go. Willow’s best friend Ava falls for Malcolm’s co-worker and good friend Bishop, who is a bear shifter. Their romance plays out prominently in this book, although there is not an HEA for them yet. I was actually more invested in Bishop and Ava’s romance – Bishop is a huge bear shifter that embarrasses easily and Ava was cute. I was a little let-down that we get a lot of story from them but no HEA yet. I’ll probably read their story though. I have a thing for big, burly, bashful bear shifters.
I didn’t really like Willow – she didn’t seem genuine to me. She was too perky and I felt her interactions with Malcolm were not authentic. She liked to give him a hard time and she liked to flirt with him, but it was constant and she never let up. There are sexy sex scenes, but it didn’t feel romantic to me. The romantic courtship was lacking, and when they do fall in love, it didn’t feel like love.
The actual shifter stuff was not prominent either. We get a lot of the mating bites, and the “mine” and the protective instincts. But there isn’t really any talk of packs, or a wolf community. We get introduced to a lot of individual shifters, but skip the actual shifting for the most part.
There were a few cute scenes, but it just didn’t work well for me.
Rating: C-
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