Chantel Seabrook, $0.99, ISBN 978-1386740698
Fantasy Romance, 2015
Chasing Payne is the first entry in Chantel Seabrook’s Therian Agents series, and it’s set in a world where there are good furries and bad ones.
The good furries are nice ones that act and look human all the time, such as our were-lion hero Chase Payne—there goes any chance of me taking this fellow seriously—and heroine Lora Oliver, the present day equivalent of fake sheikhs. Look ma, these lions all look like humans, with none of the icky ticks, genitalia-licking, and smelly wet fur that make actual lions not exactly the materials of sexy fantasies!
The bad furries are the ones that actually behave like beasts. Called Metamorphs, they are actual furries that are no doubt being subject to genocide by humans with delusions of being furries. They are the bad guys, though, because they are authentic in what they are, plus they aren’t hot.
Anyway, Chase is the boss of a team of Therian agents (buy all the stories, people), and he has no time for Lora Leigh graduating from the academy and being an agent because he gets too overprotective over her. Never mind that he is surrounded by strong alpha females, such as Lora’s mom, he just can’t deal with women that have aspirations higher than desk jobs.
You may be thinking, great. This story will have Lora proving Chase wrong, that she is a capable, well-trained agent, right?
Unfortunately, this isn’t that story. In fact, Lora has a crippling secret that makes her utterly incapable of doing anything right. I don’t understand why she needs to take up this job then. What’s wrong with, I don’t know, baking cakes?
Also, the fact that this walking calamity actually passes her training has me questioning just what exactly did they test her over there. Since this is a romance story and hence the heroine can’t be a ho, it’s not like she slept her way to the top of the class. So, what gives?
Still, the hero gets to puff up his chest and rescues her a lot. He also scolds her a lot and puts his penis inside her even lots. So… happy ending? Mission accomplished?
This story is clearly written just to present a rescue fantasy with a heroine that is designed to be a complete flop right out the gate so that she will finally trip and fall onto the hero’s pee-pee.
Reading this is an intensely embarrassing experience, although whether the shame is for Lora for being such a flop of a person or myself for having read this story, who knows. It’s the 21st century now. Surely it’s okay to have a heroine that won’t trip and suffer a near-fatal accident with every third step she takes?
