Didn't like it as much as the first one. Still pretty standard stuff for supernatural romance short stories, but not bad. Just OK.
Picks up right where book 1 leaves off (though you don't really have to have read it to follow along). Bonnie (h) is visiting her friend Amelia at Amelia's boyfriend's (mate's) house, when her friend drops the bombshell that she is now a wolf shifter and will be moving out of the city to live with her mate on his mountain property. Shane (H), the Second in the pack, is just as upset when Bonnie storms off, because he's realized that she is his mate. Can he get her to change her mind, accept him, their bond, all his quirks, and the rest of the paranormal world - all while keeping her safe from a threat to her safety?
I honestly didn't mind the formulaic elements to this one. I just wish that there'd been more time spent on the actual key couple in this story. Could have been three stars, maybe, with a bit more development there. As it was, it felt like we spent a lot of time (for the length of the book) following up on Amelia and Kai, and introducing more of the other mechanics in the pack (future stories, I'm sure). Bonnie and Shane had enough unique elements to them - both independent and wanting control over their lives - that watching how their different coping strategies meshed could have made for an interesting story, especially once the threat to Bonnie appeared. It just felt like they never got enough page time, for what was their own book.
I think one of my biggest problems with this one, though, was the sense of time. They know each other less that a week. Literally, the book starts on a Saturday night and ends before the next week is up. And yet, the leads toss around lines like "she always does" or "he never would" like they've actually known each other long enough to have any sort of basis for that statement. And at the same time, she's fighting the bond because she knows how ridiculously fast it is. So, she's fighting against falling in love within a week, but at the same time, making statements about how "he always makes her feel" yadda yadda yadda. It was a weird mix.
The same skewed sense of time affected Bonnie talking about her friend's change to wolf. One of her first responses seeing Amelia again in town? "Amelia was a different person since the change, but also not. She was just far more assertive than she’d been before getting turned into a wolf shifter." Um, it's been about a day and a half, maybe two, since Amelia told her, most of which they were out of touch because they'd argued. So Bonnie is making this broad statement based on two interactions post bomb-dropping news, but sounding like she's had lots of time to observe her friend?
Speaking of weird wordings, there were quite a number of things that just felt off. They've gone around the garage to tell everyone where the pack is meeting for dinner, then she turns and asks him what he's figured out for dinner. There wasn't anything indicating she was joking or sarcastic - same with his answer, that they were going to one of his favorite places. You know, the place that they just told everyone else to meet them at?? And when she's getting the tour of his house, he shows her an empty room that he doesn't label and says he doesn't know what to do with. She responded with ovary explosions because "Geez, a hot guy with manners who actually cared about her?" because she was assuming the room was "to be a kid’s playroom, an office, or a game room," but mostly to her, a playroom. Those were her assumptions, completely not based on anything Shane had said. To him it was an empty room he had no plans for, but she's jumping to conclusions that it means he cares about her and wants kids. Nothing he said in that tour indicated that!! It was Bonnie being weird and crazy-sounding. These were just two examples, I know, but there were quite a number of conversations like this which just seemed to be non sequitors to the rest of whatever was going on at the time, like the scene got edited around the conversation, but the conversation itself didn't change. That and the weird time line references just gave it a choppy feel.
Some editing issues. A moment of continuity where Shane has brown eyes instead of blue. Lots of comma issues. Unlike usual (at least, it seems for free Kindle finds), the commas weren't overabundant. Instead, they were noticeably absent. Lots of conjunctions without commas, lots of dependent clauses without commas - that sort of thing. Made some sentences very confusing.
Alternating 3rd person POV. No cheating, no OW/OM issues, no love triangles. Drama is mostly from a human coming to terms with her introduction to the paranormal world (which includes a sudden mate bond and a death threat from a paranormal source). Choppy feel to the timeline and the narrative, and rather formulaic plot left me ho-hum. Just OK. Like the first one, the story just ends HFN. No cliffhangers, but no concrete down-the-road resolution either. Yeah, I'm finding I do like my epilogues.
Would I read more? Why not. They aren't bad, but there are other SPN romance authors I prefer. Still, if more of the series shows up free on Kindle, I wouldn't avoid it either.