BeWere My Heart, Book #3
(It doesn’t say it’s part of the series on Goodreads or NetGalley, but it is.)
Reviews of BeWere My Heart Book #1 and Book #2
Heat Factor: The slowest of horny slow burns, with hot fading to deep purple after 90%
Character Chemistry: I liked them for each other, but there was more focus on the banter and the danger than on the emotional development
Plot: A loner werebear with a checkered past finds a naked woman washed up on his island. Then she hops up and swims off, and he goes after her. Banter ensues.
Overall: I definitely laughed out loud.
If you’re looking for a serious romantic suspense book, or a romance that’ll release a kaleidoscope of butterflies in your stomach, this is not that book. In fact, if Verity and Magnus weren’t so horny for each other, it would be romance adjacent at best. But Verity is very interested in Magnus’s sexiness, even if not in his protectiveness, and Magnus just has this inexplicable need to just…check in. Make sure Verity hasn’t died yet. It’s nothing personal, really. So even though it’s a slow burn with a sex scene added at the very end (a thing some readers have feelings about), I would not categorize this book as smut adjacent.
We were introduced to Magnus Berne in A Wolf After My Own Heart. He’s a mysterious figure, extremely wealthy but also extremely isolated. You’d never know that Magnus’s story would follow Oz’s, but that’s how this series goes. You don’t really have to know about anything that happened in order to enjoy the book, but there’s plenty to make a reader go back and read prior books if they’re interested enough to do so.
Verity Lane is a squib, which is a shifter that can’t shift. In all other ways, she has all the shifter powers – the ability to heal quickly, super senses, and super strength. Her parents have always treated her as defective in a worried, hovering way, so when she ran off to Minnesota and met a fellow squib, she joined his squib club and proceeded to engage in extremely dangerous and sometimes illegal activities to prove that squibs are just as capable as all other shifters.
Which is why she ends up naked and asleep on Magnus’s island after swimming six miles across Lake Minnetonka.
There’s a whole mystery plot, complete with murders and threats to Verity’s life and limb, but really the draw of this book (and the whole series…and probably any book my MJD) is that it’s completely bananapants. Completely. Bananapants.
There is banter. There is cheek. There is a shocking lack of reverence for Serious Things. There are absurd footnotes (but I might try to find some kawaii sugar cubes, because I’m intrigued now). There is a woman who is perfectly capable of taking care of herself (Thankyouverymuch), murders notwithstanding. And a man who is not doing a particularly good job of taking care of himself but has decided to take care of others.
So if you like absurdity with your crime-solving, then this is probably a good book for you. And if you have a connection to Minnesota and the Twin Cities, it’s really fun. But if you like gentle romance, lotsa angst, or big romance feels, you might want to take a pass this time.
I voluntarily read and reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. We disclose this in accordance with 16 CFR §255.
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