Review: Big Bad Beast

Reviewed by Jen
 

When I first got the whiff of a pairing between Ric and Dee a few books back, I was really excited about the idea.  But when I got to know Dee a little better in the last installment and watched her interaction with Blayne, my excitement started to wane a bit.  Frankly, she was kind of a bitch and I have a hard time rooting for characters who aren't likeable.  My opinion of Dee did improve in this book, but this wasn't among my favorites in the series.

It got off to a slow start.  We spend a lot of time with Ric making cow eyes at Dee and her pretty much blowing him off.  Then, she suddenly decides to take him up on all of his flirting, and it kind of feels out of the blue.  We find out in her POV stuff that she has always found him attractive, but her move to go for it with him was abrupt and seemed out of left field.  Regardless, once the two of them finally started a romance, the book began to pick up some steam.

For those who aren't familiar with the characters, Ric is a master chef who also runs the local hockey team and helps lead a shifter crime fighting force. (A multi-tasker.) He is also supermodel gorgeous and has been completely head over heels with Dee for as long as he has known her.  Dee is a trained killer, a former Marine, and country girl.  (Yes, we've returned to the hillbilly Smith pack for this one.)  She also works for Ric's "Group."

As the story begins, the Group is still investigating the human organization kidnapping shifter hybrids and forcing them to fight.  And that storyline runs throughout the book.  The Group and the investigation are just kind of the background framework, however, for getting Dee and Ric together.  I felt like the relationship development was ok --not as good as the last two books.

But the best parts of this installment were the same things that I have found consistently enjoyable about every book in the series. 1) The same core group of characters plays a prominent role. We get to continue following their lives and (mostly) enjoying their quirks.  Each one of them is so clearly defined and stays true to who they are, book after book.  2) The sex is great.  And 3) The laughs are big.  Sometimes, we even get the sex and humor tied in together.

She was stupidly falling for a Van Holtz. The enemy wolf of her Pack. Her daddy hated Van Holtzes the way Dee hated the taste of zebra. Since she could crawl, he'd been warning her about staying away from them, never trusting them, and outright killing them if they got too close.

Well... how could the man be any closer? He'd pushed her onto the bed and had buried his face into her pussy, licking and sucking his way into her heart. Turning her inside out, making her come again.  It just wasn't fair.

How was she supposed to fight this? And, as she came all over his face, her entire body writhing on his bear-size bed, she wasn't real sure anymore that she wanted to fight this.

Because, in the end, the man did make a hell of a waffle...

I know some of my fellow readers love, love, love these books.  I think, in this case, the characters just didn't speak to me much. Dee was hard to relate to and not all that likeable.  This, while Ric is basically perfect and a little flat. For me, they series is fairly good. But as I've said before, don't expect anything deep or with a lot of substance.

It's light, funny, sexy, and over-the-top.

Rating: B-

Click to purchase: Amazon  

Big Bad Beast

by Shelly Laurenston

Release Date: May 1, 2011

Publisher: Kensington