BEAST BEHAVING BADLY by Shelly Laurenston-a review

Every Thursday, Tynga’s review hosts-Daring You To Read.

This week The Reading Cafe is daring you to read: BEAST BEHAVING BADLY by Shelly Laurenston.

BEAST BEHAVING BADLY by Shelly Laurenston-a review

BEAST BEHAVING BADLY is the 5^th novel in Shelly Laurenston’s Pride series.  Shelly Laurenston (aka G A Aiken) writes with humor, romance and enough sex to make you laugh and sigh all at the same time. Both of Shelly’s series involved paranormal shifter storylines, but the characters are as fallible and lovable as any human or animal on the planet.   Beast Behaving Badly is my favorite novel and Blayne and Bo, are probably my favorite couple.

Bo Novikov is part polar bear/part lion and all male.  As one of the most aggressive professional hockey players in the professional shifter league, Bo’s reputation precedes him.  Many hockey players, both full human and shifter, rarely recover after a physical encounter with Bo.  But his OCD with time, cleanliness and lists, pushes the patience of everyone including his family.  But when a young woman with sexy legs, catches his eye 10 years earlier, it has left him longing for a return to the Carnivores Team from the Shifter Hockey league.  Hoping to meet the mysterious beauty, Bo finds himself signing a contract without hesitation.

Blayne Thorpe is part wild dog/part wolf and as energetic as ever.  Raised by her widowed father, Ezra is a shifter wolf from the Magnus Pack and as dangerous as any protective father and wolf, Blayne was always shunned by the wolves for her mixed heritage. Known for their tendency to get emotional and aggressive, wild dog/wolf hybrids were shunned by their own.  But when she and her best friend Gwen, take in Gwen’s fiance’s hockey game, Blayne panics when one-Bo Novikov, now 7 feet of prime bear-cat hybrid, pursues her in hopes of dinner and a date.

There is much humor involved with Shelly’s writing.  The antics of Mitch O’Neil-lion male and his brotherly affection for Blayne will have you laughing.  The sexual innuendos and double-speak between the wild-dogs and their pack, will make you want to read the passages over again, until your sides hurt. Blayne, like any wild dog, runs off her energy chasing squirrels and hunting wild game.

Bo and Blayne’s relationship has it moments.  When Blayne approaches Bo to help  train for shifter derby, Blayne’s penchant for misplacing items, her lack of time management and messy lifestyle leave Bo feeling like he has lost his mind.  But Bo’s need for schedules and cleanliness have everyone, including his teammates hiding behind closed doors.  But an attack and attempted abduction, have Bo and Blayne airlifted to Ursus County, Maine for the type of medical care only shifters can provide.

When Bo finally wakens from surgery, his only thoughts are for Blayne.  He has grown to love his wolf-dog, and remembering how she looked after the accident, leaves him reeling with the idea that she may not have survived.  But when the surgeon removes a micro-chip that was imbedded into Blayne, she realizes that she was used as bait in a deadly game of shifter fighting and take-downs.  Knowing who was probably responsible, Blayne and Bo refuse to return home, and the couple begin a humorous and sexual relationship that had only just begun before the attack.

Following an investigation into a series of shifter kidnappings and death, all leads point to Ursus County, Maine –the one place no one had considered before- and the temporary home of Bo and Blayne. When Ezra Thorpe, a retired navy man, is called into help by the Alpha male of the rich and famous Van Holtz pack, he is only too aware, that his only daughter had been used.  Making a deal with the Alpha, Ezra agrees to help return his daughter and the hockey hero, but on the condition that those responsible are brought swiftly and quickly to justice. 

Blayne and Bo’s relationship has many humorous moments:  from her garbage heap of an apartment and its’ 15 open-boxes of sandwich bags, and her need to wear street vendor watches made by Pra-du and Cha-Chanel to  Bo’s need for lists , schedules and accurate time keeping, that will in the end, actually save the couple from  the shifter fighting pits and keep them safe and alive. Bo’s hockey championships and Blayne’s derby antics, will have you in stitches, just like Bo and Blayne.

There is much background information revealed in The Mane Squeeze, the book prior to Beast Behaving Badly.  Shelly’s novels should be read in order so that most of the storylines are not confusing.  An attack against Blayne in the prior novel, will reach its’ climax in Beast Behaving Badly and many of the characters from most of the previous novels, make an appearance in one way or another.  Shelly, whether in her G A Aiken persona, or as Shelly herself, involves all of her major characters in most of the storylines and novels, and that is a positive aspect of her writing.  I am a big fan of Shelly’s Pride and Pack series, as well as her Dragonkin series (G A Aiken) and if you have never read one of her novels, I suggest and recommend you start at the beginning and don’t stop until your sides hurt from laughter.

Reviewed by Sandy

With the release of Bear Meets Girl on March 6, 2012, I am recommending Shelly Laurenston’s Pride and Pack series-if only to make you laugh for a few hours.

PRIDE AND PACK SERIES READING ORDER

Shelly Laurenston….Magnus and Pride Series

1. Pack Challenge

2. Go Fetch

3. Here Kitty Kitty

4. When He was Bad..anthology

5. The Mane Event

6. The Beast in Him

7. The Mane Attraction

8. The Mane Squeeze

9. Beast Behaving Badly

10. Big Bad Beast

11.Bear Meets Girl …2012

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