Samhain Publishing, $5.50, ISBN 978-1-59998-512-1
Fantasy Romance, 2007

“It wasn’t casual for me.”

He couldn’t argue. Women, as he bloody well knew, didn’t wear sports bras when they wanted to go home with someone from a bar. He spread his hands before him. “Tonight is all I can offer you. I’m sorry.”

She was picking up her purse now, grabbing her jacket. He wanted to rewind the scene so they could get back to the sex, the cuddling, the kissing. Of course, he’d made sure to destroy any chance of that. He had to. His sweat smelled of fear and self-loathing. He wondered if she subconsciously picked up his emotions because she was staring at him in consternation and bafflement.

He broke eye contact and pulled on his pants.

“Call me a taxi,” she ordered. “Now. I need to get out of here.”

OK, You are a taxi!

Let’s start from the beginning, this cover is the ugliest damn thing I have ever seen from Samhain. There is nothing even remotely sexy about that picture. The putrid thing is creepy as hell.

Jamie Buchner has been recently divorced and has moved back to her home of Cedartown, from where she had lived in Atlanta, to raise her son. While on her first and only night out at a local bar she runs into Seth Kolski and proceeds to go home with him and have mad passionate sex. Then right after that mad passionate sex they have a mad passionate fight as you can tell from the excerpt above.

This argument above would not normally be a problem for me if it did not leave me thinking to myself: what the hell did these guys actually talk about at the bar? It’s not like the writer has to tell me everything they said but would it not be sorta normal to ask typical conversational questions of the girl you are so desperately in love with and has suddenly shown up at a local bar and is not wearing a wedding ring? Would you casually at least ask what she is doing in town?

Especially when the last time you “stalked her” as a wolf she was in Atlanta and married with a kid.

Now, after a conversation like the one above would you honestly like this guy much? Remember, you were recently divorced from a loser who fucked around on you. See, looking to hook up with another loser so soon afterwards is a problem for me and not the only one I ran into here.

He had her on the floor, ripping off her pants, tearing the foil packet open, covering himself.

“Yeah, well things kind of got away from me.” He never wanted her to know how much. Still, he claimed her mouth one last time, to remind her of what they’d shared. Then he took care of the condom.

Notice he uses a condom in one of the only two detailed sex scenes in this entire book, around page 29? Well next thing you know three weeks later she is pregnant. I did not catch him seeing any problems with said condom. He did not seem to show any surprise at said condom having slipped or even broken.

So I have to take this as a sign of special werewolf magic sperm.

Also note I just pointed out the first sexual encounter occurred on and around page 29. I got damn bored with this book and started actually counting, which is not a good sign by the way. It took another 113 pages before we get to another sex scene. Believe me, there was more angsting and inner turmoil going on in those 113 pages than any main character interaction or any real action happening for that matter.

I really should try and say clearly that I am not all about sex. To me the absence of sex is just an easy indication there is an overwhelming lack of significant main character interactions in vast expanses of this story. Most of this book ends up explaining in detail whatever Jamie is worried over not what is actually going on, which unfortunately for the most part not much is going on. So I hope you like all the various flavors of angst.

Jamie starts off with “Why does Seth not call me?” and this AFTER wolf boy acted like a total asshole to her at his house. Why would Jamie be waiting for him to call? It just seemed strange, weak willed and self inflicted. Then the next thing you know they meet at her kids school because Seth is the local elementary school gym teacher and she is all “Leave me alone!”. I was seriously scratching my head with the damn mood swings.

When Jamie finds out she is pregnant with Seth’s kid. (How I ask? HOW?) things get really weird because she keeps admitting to herself that she likes him but then does not immediately tell him that she is pregnant with his child. How does that work? How do you like someone but can not bring yourself to divulge important personal information that will effect his entire life?

Then when she actually tells him (In the middle of an argument where she then is yelling NO ABORTIONS! We will not even discuss it. Being she has such a great record of choosing men I find this to be more than a little stupid.) he does not even ask the one question I would have asked. “Are you sure it is mine? I used a condom you know. Are you pawning your ex-husband’s next kid off on me?” This whole skeptical male thinking and subsequent discussion does not come up till pages and pages later when it would have been an initial response in my mind. After all the freaky erratic behavior she has shown and all.

Last but not least after 113 pages of Jamie’s self involved angst you get a blow job and a quick fuck and the rest of the book just summarizes the sex scenes. I felt robbed of the crazy scary animal lovin’ here! I mean, if you are gonna drag me kicking and screaming though one overly long angst ridden, self involved, problem after another. All being easily solved once seriously confronted, you had better make it all worth my time and effort. Not so with The Strength of The Angst.

This book just hits me as needing a real trimming. There simply was no reason we had to be shown again and again that Derek, Jamie’s ex-husband, was a flake. We did not have to be shown again and again that Seth was good with kids. There was really no reason for all the phone conversations we were forced to listen in on. Why did we even need to go to Jamie’s mom and dad’s? Nothing of consequence actually took place for pages and pages.

All the action seemed to be saved up for the last few chapters and by that time so much nothing had happened I was really over this book.