I can't recall reading a romance like this one before, written in the first person, with each chapter switching from his point of view to hers. It took a little getting used to but I enjoyed it because I got a first person account of the quirkiness of the characters and their intimate thoughts about a previous scene. I laughed more than once as his viewpoint ended and then we got to see her real thoughts about the last scene.Victoria is an anthromorph. A what, you ask? This means she's a defective werewolf. Born to two werewolf parents but with a defect that prevents her from shapeshifting, mating and having little werewolves. But she does have all of the other benefits of a typical werewolf such as heightened senses and extreme beauty. Because of her disability others in the pack treat her with indifference and blatant prejudice. She's been passed over for promotions and has had all of her creative ideas stolen from her. Surprisingly she's not bitter, she just accepts this as her fate since she's been treated this way since birth. She's a little bit of a doormat but I immediately liked her and once she meets Noah she's anything but passive!
Noah's a full-blooded werewolf (and all of his parts work), who's recently been appointed head of the business and will one day be leader of the werewolf pack. He has some misgivings about the whole thing because up until lately he loved his playboy/slacker lifestyle and now his Grandpere, who doesn't seem to have any confidence in his skills, is making him work like a dog but not giving him any real responsibilities. When he's assigned to work with Victoria to locate an employee bent on sabotaging the company he figures he being played for a fool. After all he is the Big Boss and she's a measly peon with little brains, or so he's led to believe - at first.
As they begin to spend time together he realizes he and the rest of the pack were all wrong about Victoria. He soon respects her talent and lusts after her body. He begins wanting to spend time with her just because he likes being around her and he tells her so. She's flattered by the attention but thinks he's only trying to get her to do more work, off hours, and is too cheap to pay her overtime. They start to fall in love and can't keep their hands off of each other but it's a seemingly hopeless cause because of his responsibility to the pack to produce an heir, something Victoria is unable to do.
This is a great werewolf romance. The characters are lovable (although I must admit I had my doubts about the arrogant playboy hero who was a little snobby but the strong woman in the novel didn't let him get away with it and he turned out to be a big softie). It has a little angst, a little humor and a lot of sensuality. The love story was developed slowly and the couple become friends before realizing that they were in love, always a plus when one reads a romance. And I also liked the way the werewolves looked at things so differently from humans. There were a few scenes where I thought I saw a petty argument and a "big misunderstanding" coming but the author surprised me and avoided it with a fascinating explanation that made lots of sense about the wolves nature. I did figure out the intrigue part of the story early on but all in all this was an entertaining romance that I feel will appeal to even non-werewolf fans who like a contemporary setting, a working class heroine and a well developed love story.
I should probably make note that this book is a sequel to SECRET OF THE WOLF (Silh. Shadows #54) and if you have it you should probably read it first because past occurrences are mentioned several times. But if you don't have it I think you'll still enjoy this one but when you're done I can almost guarantee that you'll be dying to get your hands on a copy to read more about Michael and Aggie's story!
