Tirza Schaefer, $2.99, ISBN 978-3946011217
Contemporary Romance, 2016

The cover of Christmas in Montana screams “the hero is going to penetrate that dog on the cover”, or shapeshifter romance in other words, while the title screams “smalltown romance”. The mixed message is a representation of the chaos awaiting me in the pages of this story.

It all begins with Jett and Ace Ventura—OMG LOLOLOLOL… wait, the author isn’t going for comedy?— friends that haven’t seen much of one another in 13 years, reuniting at a bar in their hometown in West Yellowstone. Yes, these men are in the military. Did their names give that away?

These two men proceed to deliver details to me in the guise of spontaneous and realistic masculine camaraderie.

“I’m fine. You know me, give me a wrench and a screwdriver and I’m happy. But what about you? I heard about your wife. I’m sorry, man.”

Yeah, he heard about the wife, but the reader doesn’t, so dude, let’s just make that other fellow talk about it.

“Someone’s got to keep up the stats, I guess. At least when you’re a part of the 95% divorce rate, you don’t feel so alone.”

I guess they hold drama classes in the military.

Meanwhile, our heroine Sutani Beaver—LOLOLOLOLOL… what, the author is being serious?—is badly injured in the head. She works at the local grizzly and wolf research center and one of those bears she was feeding earlier playfully took a swipe at her head. 

The gush on her forehead looked worse and deeper than it actually was. The snow had softened the crust that had dried over it and now the wound had started to bleed again, a streak of red blood running down the side of her face. Sutani thought it was merely the water from the melted snow in her hair, since her whole scalp stung from the cold and she couldn’t see the red already colouring her skin.

So, with that injury, she straight goes to the pub. Come on, people, give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she intends to order a tub of the strongest drink they have to dunk her head in and sterilize the wound.

Jett asks her whether she is okay, concerned that she has a concussion. Hence, she gives a most thorough response.

“No, I played with a Grizzly,” Sutani answered pulling a face. “I work at the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center. Gross the Grizzly wanted my woolly hat, so he swiped it off my head and his claws…Well, he’s young and doesn’t know his own strength sometimes. He doesn’t know me so well, I’m usually looking after the wolves only, but my colleague is ill and I had to feed Gross. He looked so grumpy and forlorn, so I went in to him to give him a cuddle. He likes that a lot. Anyway, he went up onto his hind legs to swipe the hat off my head and got a bit of my forehead scratched in the process.”

I suppose her ability to say so many words in the most boring Wikipedia stub-like manner possible rules out a concussion.

Anyway, despite the author wasting an entire first chapter describing how Ace Ventura LOLOLOLOL and Jett have a close friendship and that the two men share mutual grief over the death of a buddy, Jett and this grief immediately vamoose, never to be seen or brought up again, the moment Sunny Beaver shows up in the next chapter. What is the point of that chapter, then? 

As for the romance, Ace immediately gets to inspect the beaver in question up close the moment I turn the page after they have finished discussing the legend of the hat-swiping grizzly and I can only blink. Did I miss something, or does that description of Gross the Grizzly Girl Grabber constitute swiping right on the hook-up app and foreplay all in one?

This one is really amateur hour, I’m afraid.

The characters talk like robots, the narrative style is equally robotic, and all the names of animal types start with a capital letter—this is a Bear, that is a Dingo, and no, don’t ask me how a dingo ends up in America—for whatever reason. The whole thing is just a hot mess.

Also, this story is set at first in Montana and then Virginia, but the author mixes in British spelling with American, and the result is a hotter mess. I notice on the copyright page that this thing is supposedly edited by some professional—the author may want to suggest to this editor to stay awake a bit more next time, considering that this editor is paid to do a job.

The main characters are Ace Ventura and Sutani Beaver. Seriously, the author should have just made this one a farcical comedy and who knows, maybe that would result in an actually readable story.