Waking the Bear by Kerry Adrienne (Shifter Wars #1)
Released: August 1, 2016
Paranormal Romance
Carina Press
Reviewed by Mandi
Anytime I see a bear-shifter book, I’m interested. There is something about a rugged, mountain bear shifter that makes me roar. This book starts pretty cute. Griff is our hero and a bear-shifter. He is also a park ranger, along with his clan. He is just coming out of hibernation and still sleepy. Awwww. Years ago his family was murdered, and that still weighs heavily on him. I think he actually cries in this book – I needed to give him a hug. The bears and the local lion pack do not get a long. The bears have control over a lot of territory, including this special cave that has a mystical/magical powers. The lions want this cave – and on top of that, there is a lion shifter named Evers, who blames Griff for the death of his parents. Evers’ parents died in a car accident, which Griff witnessed, and Evers is sure that Griff played some part in it. He wants revenge.
Amy is our heroine, who is coming out of a bad abusive relationship and a crappy job. Deciding to take off two months to regroup, she rents a cabin in the mountains to clear her head and spend the spring painting. Griff owns this cabin, and since there are very few people who live in this town, they run into each other a lot. The first time Griff sees her, he realizes shockingly that Amy is his fated mate. But, Amy has no idea shifters are real, and she barely knows him, so Griff knows he has to take things slow. When Evers gets wind that Griff has interest in Amy, her life becomes in danger.
The romance between Griff and Amy builds up well throughout the book. They are shy with each other at first, which was cute. Griff is a gentleman and gave Amy lots of room to get to know him even though his bear on the inside was screaming, mine. Their relationship is the strongest part of the book – unfortunately the rest didn’t work for me so well. First, Griff knows the lion pack wants to start a war with them – and he repeatedly tells Amy she really shouldn’t be hiking or even going outside much because the woods are dangerous. Does she listen? No. Which ends up with her being predictably kidnapped by the end of the book. Griff knew this was a huge possibility – why didn’t he just say there was a dangerous man on the loose and for her to literally not go outside? I felt like precautions could have been taken more. The ending drama is so very predictable.
And in terms of the lions and bears wanting to kill each other – Evers, the lion shifter that wants revenge on Griff – he seemed unstable and I could picture him wanting to get a violent revenge. But the other lion shifters all seemed so gentle calm.
Most of the lions seemed to prefer hanging out and playing eight ball at the clubbhouse or, as he’d heard, in the summer, sunning themselves by the pool Max has put in. No on wanted to actually fight for what the bears took from them. Max had even built a bowling alley and the lions has teams.
Then they would say things like – let’s go kill bears! It didn’t make sense to me. Same with the bear clan too. They are nice guys all joking around and giving each other a hard time. All sleepy from hibernation – I didn’t see their blood-thirsty side. I think a big problem with this is that we don’t get to see much of the bear or lion culture at all. We see them in a meeting or two with the leaders, but their pack dynamic and culture as a whole is missing – so it was hard to understand their true nature. To me, neither side felt violent.
A nice romance, but everything else is predictable.
Grade: C
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