Love and Lust rec: 'Prickly Business' by Piper Vaughn and Kenzie Cade
Prickly Business by Piper Vaughn and Kenzie Cade
What it's about (courtesy Dreamspinner Press):
Some people might call Avery Babineaux a prick. He's a hedgehog shifter from an old-money Louisiana family with a penchant for expensive shoes and a reputation for being a judgmental snob. His attitude is why he and his fated mate are estranged. Not that Avery cares. He doesn't want to be mated to some blue-collar werewolf anyway. Or so he keeps telling himself.
No werewolf likes to be looked down upon, least of all Dylan Green. He doesn't need a mate, especially not some snotty hedgehog who sneers at his custom motorcycle shop and calls him a grease monkey. But when Avery gets into trouble with a shady loan shark, Dylan can't stand by and let him be hurt—whether he wants the brat or not.
Yet once Dylan steps into Avery's world, he realizes there's more to Avery than his prickly exterior, and that unexpected vulnerability calls to Dylan's protective instincts. The sassy little hedgehog needs a keeper, and despite their horrible first impressions, Dylan starts to believe he might be the wolf for the job.
Why you should read it: Shifter books are my weakness. I just love them, especially when there is something different about the story, such as an animal other than a wolf as the shifted creature. In Prickly Business, Ms. Vaughn and Ms. Cade have built a world in which the Portland (Oregon) pack is primarily a werewolf pack but occasionally the alpha allows another animal to co-exist under their protection.
Avery is a hedgehog shifter. He comes from old family money based in Louisiana and has never worked or had to live without the comforts that Daddy's money can buy. He has attended college in Portland to get out from under his father's watchful eye but still expects to receive his extravagant monthly allowance. When he finds himself in debt beyond his ability to repay due to some ill-advised gambling, he reaches out to his father for help. His father decides to simply cut Avery off from the family money until Avery reaches the age at which he can receive his inheritance (three more years).
Dylan is Avery's fated mate, but Avery's sense of entitlement keeps Dylan from accepting this as a permanent relationship. Avery is too stuck-up to accept that he might be destined to be mated to a blue-collar worker, since Dylan owns a car repair and restoration shop. Their friends are stuck with having to convince both of them to give up their prejudices and get to know each other before making that kind of decision.
Avery takes a job delivering meals to shut-ins, the only job he can find with his lack of experience, and it is there that he meets Mr. Otis, an old wolf whose wife has passed away and whose daughter has gone missing. Avery takes it upon himself to try to find the missing girl and discovers that he is again in trouble way over his head.
The mystery elements of the story are unique to shifter novels and quickly bring the reader into the suspense of the underworld in the Portland werewolf society. Avery, Dylan and their friends find that they are not only participating in a missing-person mystery but also having to fight with the older generation of pack leaders who insist on doing things as they've always done.
The ending isn't exactly a cliffhanger, but the mystery of Mr. Otis' missing daughter isn't completely solved, a thriller that must wait for the next book in the series. There is a satisfactory solution for Avery and Dylan, but there are other members of the pack who need their stories told. Character driven as well as plot driven, Prickly Business is an exceptional shifter novel in the m/m genre, and left me eager to read more about this pack and to see the mystery of what happened to Lacey solved. This is an enjoyable LGBT shifter book with characters who stay with the reader after the book is finished.
Becky Condit is a widow, mother of three and grandmother of 10 who reads all kinds of books, but her go-to comfort books are erotic romances. A romance novel coupled with just-out-of-the-oven chocolate-chip cookies and a glass of cold milk is her idea of heaven. She reads and reviews more than 250 books a year, so you won't often find her without her Kindle in hand, but when you do, she'll probably be gardening, doing needle crafts, working in her upholstery workshop and spending time with her family.