Hunting Love [Paperback]

I am a fan of shifter romances and while I generally think that wolf shifters make great alpha leading men, I do have to admit that the idea of cat shifters with their slinky sensuous grace just calls to mind the quote, "cats rule and dogs drool".

Dana Marie Bell kicks off Hunting Love's cat shifter anthology with "Wallflower", Emma is a successful shop owner in her home town and no longer the plump highschool girl who crushed on Max Cannon. Max is now a doctor and is back in town to set up shop - and unknown to human Emma to take over as Alpha of his pride. Emma's dreamed about the sexy Max for years and now all her dreams may just come true - because Max thinks Emma's his mate. But is this former wallflower strong enough to rule at Max's side, especially with one 'catty' shifter female who intends to 'sink her claws' into Max and never let go? - There were parts of this story that I really liked, Emma has a great sense of humor and has some really funny one liners, and she comes across as a strong character so that you believe that she is more than fit to be a 'cat' alpha - except for one minor area, she is a pushover when it comes to accepting the life altering decisions Max makes for her. I don't think that Emma wouldn't have at least given him a hard time for his highhandedness, even if she ended up happy with the outcome. Woven into the story there is also the start of what looks like a tease for a possible follow-on story for Max's second in command Simon and Emma's best friend Becky. (3.5 stars - for the character break and one unfavorite word in the mix)

While Bell's story was fine, my favorite of the anthology was JB McDonald's "Treasure Hunting" - Sociology Professor Meg steals off to South America when ever she has time off and searches the jungle for ruins. On this expedition she makes a truly amazing find, a wounded jaguar in the jungle, one that shifts into a gorgeous naked male. Though he generally avoids narrow minded human woman, Santiago's bullet wound quickly become infected and he needs Meg to get him to help. - I really liked this one, McDonald did a great job of developing an attraction between the Meg and the 'cat-God', using Santiago's injury to keep the unlikely pair together long enough to get to them to like each other (in addition to the immediate lust for each other) and also uses his weakness to stave off the culmination of the attraction long enough to build a nice amount of tension. Again as with Bell's heroine in the previous story, Meg here is a good one, some one you could imagine actually being able to hold her own in the jungle and straight forward enough to cut through misunderstandings when Santiago gets sulky. (4.5 stars)

Enjoyed the writing style of this author and the characters she introduced. Will be getting the other books in this series.

"The only problem with South America - aside from giant bugs, a lack of air conditioning, and general chauvinism - was that you could walk right past an ancient ruin and never know it."

That's the opening line of the book and it almost made me DNF this read right there and then. But I am stubborn as a mule (aka persistent) and kept reading, waiting for Ms. McDonald to redeem herself. Well, I was hit with another racist remark a few pages later, but I let it go - again. See how *persistent* I am? LOL

Dr. Meg Westfield is a Sociology Professor who loves spending her vacations exploring the South American jungles for ruins. She's never been lucky enough to find any long-lost treasure - until now... Santiago Valdez is a jaguar shapeshifter. A true and gorgeous treasure in the form of a cat-god, in Meg's opinion. Santiago has learned the hard way to be wary of human women, but he's badly wounded and needs Meg's help to get him to his family's camp safely. As they make their way through the jungle, the sexual attraction between them grows and Santiago realizes that Meg isn't like any other women he's met, but what kind of future a cat-god and a Professor can have?

As I mentioned above, I found the beginning of this book off-putting, but once I decided to let it pass as a bad joke, the rest of it wasn't bad. Meg was funny in her attempts to control her lust - she enjoyed sex and wasn't ashamed of it - and Santiago's tendency to sulk when things didn't go his way was kind of charming. (I only thought so because I wasn't the one that had to deal with it, though.) I liked their interactions - in and outside the bedroom, or better, off and on the tree (yup, they had sex on a tree, LOL) - but I didn't buy how quickly they fell in love. Meg couldn't stop ogling Santiago's godlike body and almost all her thoughts about him were X-rated. When did that turned into love? I must have missed The Epiphany.

Anyway, this read had some good moments and ended up being better than the first paragraph led me to believe. Nice save!