Review: Waking the Bear

Waking the Bear by Kerry Adrienne
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is the first book in a new series about shifters that are soon to be at war. While there are romance elements in here, the real focus was the old rivalry that could start the war.

Amy wants to get away from her abusive ex-boyfriend and a job that no longer appeals. The woods seem like the place for her, and when she finds an adorable rental that meets her severance package budget, she decides to stay for 2 months. Within minutes of wanting to sign the lease, she meets Griff and falls into lust.

Griff, a local bear shifter, knows she is his mate instantly. This is bad timing, of course, because the bears and lions are almost at war. Every advantage will be used, including someone's mate. He, just like every other male in paranormal romance, tries to protect her by staying away, but that soon proves impossible. A man who for some silly reason blames Griff for the death of his parents is looking for any chance to attack him and Amy provides him with that.

There's a lot of the standard elements here: girl ignores man's warning about danger in the woods, man tries to protect her without telling her the truth, bad guys abound, lots of miscommunication, etc. A bit of this book felt... incomplete. I'd be interested in seeing if this gets a final polish at some point to fix some of the inconsistencies in the dialogue and internal monologue. While not the most romantic or smutty book I've ever read, it was clearly trying to set up a building war and a new history of shifters.

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