Berkley Sensation, $6.99, ISBN 0-425-20964-4
Fantasy Romance, 2006

Mrs Giggles: Hello. Do I know you?

Badase Mac: I’m Badase Mac and I am a Breed. I am here to discuss what we overheard you telling your friend about my pack brother Braden Arness and his mate Megan Fields.

Mrs Giggles: Huh? Do I know you?

Badase Mac: We Breeds always know what women are talking about because of our sensitive hearing. Did I mention how we were genetically created to kill?

Mrs Giggles: Yeah. Every Breed seems to have some sort of complex where they need to reiterate their sad story at least once in every chapter. Although given how obsessed they are about sex, I’m surprised their creators can get them to stop shagging for a minute to actually kill anybody. Maybe that’s why the Breeds were to be exterminated. They are a bunch of sex-obsessed maniacs determined to steal human women from their men… god, what rubbish am I saying? Look, who are you and why are you standing at my doorstep?

Badase Mac: You don’t like Braden and his mate?

Mrs Giggles: Wait a minute, I actually like Megan’s Mark. Well, somewhat. The part of about the heroine being hunted down by Coyotes is not as well handled as I’d like, given that the whole plot seems to be nothing more than some set-up to force the heroine to be in close proximity with her “bodyguard” hero. I like Megan. I’m surprised at how kick-ass she turns out to be, given that her brother, father, and grandfather come off like complete creeps so obsessed about her safety to the point of unhealthy paranoia. I mean, making Megan feel that she has to apologize to them for being hunted down by Coyotes? That’s sick. One thing I appreciate about Braden is that despite his predictable alpha male tendencies to dominate/penetrate the heroine into a swoon of submissive bliss, he actually likes the kick-ass aspects of Megan’s personality. He’s so much unlike the creepy men in her family and therefore he is so much more tolerable as a result.

Badase Mac: You called Braden a cliché.

Mrs Giggles: No, I called him a walking erection. There is some difference there.

Badase Mac: Wait, does this mean that you like Braden or not?

Mrs Giggles: Let me say this slowly. I find the whole story nothing more than a silly set-up just for Braden and Megan to play Tarzan and Jane. I wish the mystery is better dealt with, but hey, it’s hard to take the story seriously when every time these characters are not doing something related to the suspense subplot, Braden is talking about, thinking about, wanting, or initiating sex. It gets to a point where I have to wonder whether this fellow is capable of thinking about anything else. Seriously, the non-sexual scenes in this story serve as his refractionary period. He’s always wanting to shag and dominate, it’s quite ridiculous. Anyway, I suspect that I have used too many big words that may confuse you, so I’ll just conclude by saying that I like this story because I view it as a campy story that is not to be taken seriously. The whole “I dominate, I shag you, come see and admire my big swollen manly parts!” nonsense on Braden’s part is politically incorrect but nonetheless a most addictive kind of guilty pleasure. Of course, it helps that Megan is a decent heroine unlike the heroines of some other authors that I can mention.

Badase Mac: You want me.

Mrs Giggles: Huh?

Badase Mac: You want me bad. I can smell your arousal.

Mrs Giggles: Yikes! My soup! I left the fire on!

Badase Mac: I bet a waterfall is forming between your legs as you think of running your womanly hands over my hard throbbing pectoral muscles.

Mrs Giggles: Oh god, you sound even more corny than Braden. Are you on drugs?

Badase Mac: Don’t lie, woman. Did I tell you that Breeds can smell lies too?

Mrs Giggles: I’ve always wondered about that. What does a lie smell like? I bet it smells like rotten eggs.

Badase Mac: I bet your nipples are tingling with electricity as you imagine the wide Basidiomycetes-shaped crown of my Breed shaft of indisputable virility touching and nearly fenestrating into the astral dome of your quivering cervix. I can sense that your cun-

Mrs Giggles: Okay, I’ve heard enough, Lion-O. Be off with you.

Badase Mac: Every woman wants me. The other day all I had to do was to thrust my bulging crotch at this babe standing in the middle of the highway and she immediately tore off her jeans and bent over, screaming at me to take her hard and fast just the way all Breed males take their women.

Mrs Giggles: She was on the highway?

Badase Mac: Yes, and right after she stopped screaming a truck ran into her. Bits of her brain splattered onto my fashionably disheveled hair. Some women can be so inconsiderate. At any rate, she, like many women, was clearly not worthy to make my salivary glands and penile glans swell in synchrony in a desire to mate. So you should be honored that right now both my glands and glans are bursting, throbbing, pulsing, insisting… where are you going?

Mrs Giggles: To vomit.

Badase Mac: Are we going to your bedroom? We Breeds can do it anywhere. On the table, in the bath tub, on the toilet bowl, in the refrigerator, in the microwave oven, but a bedroom will be a good place to start. Wait… Ow! What is that?

Mrs Giggles: This, Lion-O, is a super-duper electrical prod used to render misbehaving elephants unconscious. Take that, you horny creep!

Badase Mac: Ow! Hey, stay away from my Breed wang, you crazy woman! That is humanity’s last hope!

Mrs Giggles: Why are you running, Lion-O? Don’t you want me to shove this prod up your ass and show you how electrifying my arousal for you is?

Badase Mac: You crazy woman! You bitch! Clearly you are a prejudiced human who are working for the Genetics Council! How dare you treat me like this! You… you… racist!

Mrs Giggles: Yeah, yeah, and I’m also the woman who is going to do a mean Shinku Hadou-Tazer Attack on your ass.

Badase Mac: Ouch! Bitch! You witch! Ow! Help me, somebody! Braden! Help!