License to Shift by Kathy Lyons

Blurb:
BEAR MEETS GIRL…

Julie Simon returns to Saginaw, Michigan, to find her ailing father’s missing research on local shapeshifter lore. Unlucky for her, the only person who can help her is the darkly sexy Mark Robertson, the guy who spent an entire summer giving her the cold shoulder-and one white-hot night of pleasure…

Mark is a hair’s breadth away from going feral. Soon, his grizzly side will destroy everything that makes him a man. And after years of fighting, Mark is ready to give in to the beast. Then Julie-the gorgeous, curvy book nerd who awakened his most primal desires as a young man-shows up at his door. Now, he’s fighting an insatiable longing to claim her as his mate. But Julie isn’t the only one after her father’s research. Someone-or something-evil is tracking Julie’s every move…

    

My Review:
4 stars — I received a free copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.

You know what?  That was just exactly what I was looking for at this moment.  I will admit that the cover drew me to this book, but not for the reasons I think you might suspect.  I’m neither here nor there on “abs covers”, but the colours on this one really drew my eye.  I know, I know…I mean, the abs are nice too (though if you know me well you’ll know I’m strangely not a huge muscles kind of girl).  And I decided as I read the blurb that I don’t read nearly enough shifter romances, or really just paranormal books in general.  So I decided I needed some variety in my life, and I’m so glad I requested this book b/c it was hella entertaining!

I was seriously intrigued (and amused) right from the beginning.  We have this super confused hero who is fighting his grizzly side right from the start.  I found it fascinating to see how Ms. Lyons portrayed the inner battle between man and bear.  And seriously, Mark’s growliness was just sort of…adorable?  I don’t know.  Especially when we get to Julie’s POV and she makes her one request of him before they eat.  Had me laughing my butt off!  Mr. Pink Cheeks indeed.

And so it went like that, with two very likable characters, some fantastic chemistry, an intriguing world that was built, a mystery to keep me guessing and entertained, and of course some great steamy scenes.  All in all I was just entertained.  I felt like things got a bit more disjointed nearer to the end, but I hadn’t actually read the first book in the series…and while that did not really impact my reading whatsoever (ie, I do believe these can be read as standalones-ish), I felt like I didn’t get the full experience b/c I didn’t have the background from the first book.  AND in my ARC copy there were quite a few more typo type problems near the end of the book, but I wouldn’t doubt those are caught before publishing.  It just took me out of the story a bit more (but again, that was my early copy, not indicative of the final release).

So after all that, the result is that I’ve one-clicked book 1 and fully intend to read it next so I can get all the nitty-gritty about Becca and Carl.  And then I’ll be either stalking NetGalley for Alan’s book, or waiting until release to find out how it all ends.  So my foray back into the world of paranormals, and shifters in particular, was definitely a success.  😉