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My Review:Title: Christmas Polar Bear
Author: Kestra Pingree
Series: The Holiday Shifter Mates #2
Published by: Indie
Release Date: November 27, 2018
Format: Kobo Book
Pages: 200
Genres: Paranormal Romance, Holiday
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2020 HoHoHo Readathon
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks
My rating:
Blurb:Falling in love wasn’t the plan.
Cedar Mongoyak knows who she is and what she’s good at. She’s a polar bear shifter, a go-getter, and part of the biggest shifter alliance in the world: Trinity.
She can handle anything. Or so she thinks before her new assignment in Eurio, Alaska.
Set the place straight? Done. Keep an eye on an unstable Alpha polar bear without falling head over heels for him? No promises.
Gale Blanc’s kind of sexy should be illegal, and his cub is too cute for this world. What’s a girl to do when she has to stay under the same roof as them and spend Christmas with them too? Give in. Probably.
Christmas Polar Bear is a BBW paranormal polar bear shifter romance with a guaranteed HEA (happily ever after) at the end. This book works as a standalone, but it is part of The Holiday Shifter Mates series. For the best reader experience, the books should be read in order.
***This is a sweet and steamy romance. It contains a polar bear shifter guy fighting the pain of losing his first mate, his energetic cub, and a curvy polar bear shifter gal who will stop at nothing to accomplish her goals. Naughty language, intense scenes, and sexy times. For mature audiences only.
3.5 stars — There were definitely a lot of fun elements, and I enjoyed the world (even though I may not have always understood what exactly Trinity is…perhaps I should have read book 1 first?). I will admit that the writing was a bit more basic than what I typically enjoy. Definitely not bad, but…I don’t know how to describe it.
Cedar was actually a pretty fun heroine. I really appreciated that she was very unapologetic about her wants and desires, it was super refreshing. I also really appreciated that she was totally comfortable in her plus sizeness, and could recognize her own beauty, but that didn’t mean that cutting comments on her size in the past hadn’t hurt and left a mark. That’s real. I feel that.
Gale was a bit harder to completely fall in love with for me. Grief is so complicated, and I don’t want to take anything away from him, but it was hard to see him still so absorbed 6 years later…and not only that, but his neglect of his cub was kind of heartbreaking. In some ways his turnaround seemed kind of fast, but then again sometimes all we need is the right catalyst.
I thought they worked well together after they got over some significant bumps in the road. I really liked their level of communication, and the sincerity in each of their apologies along the way.
I was super intrigued by some aspects of the world, mostly the secondary characters. I could see maybe wanting to check out Mateo and Austin’s story, or find out what happens with Yuri and Lance.
On the other hand there were elements that felt like they weren’t really necessary in the grand scheme of things, even if they were cool — primarily the Solsis stuff. But again, maybe I would feel differently if I’d read book 1?
The highlight of this book for me was 100% Ike. That cub was freaking ADORABLE and precocious, and just so easy to love.
So yeah, definitely a fun book, and I’m waffling between rounding up or down…it truly is a solid 3.5 for me.
A polar bear shifter? Oh, dear. I didn’t see that one coming. I’m glad the cub was so adorable!