Zoey Indiana, $0.99, ISBN 978-0463173497
Fantasy Romance, 2020
Totally Roasted is part of Zoey Indiana’s Shifter Speed Dating Romance series. A part of me wonders: wait, shifters are attracted to one another due to fate, right? “Fate” here, of course, is a euphemism of the heroine’s unwashed panties, the smell of the hero’s unwashed armpits or pee-pee cheese or maybe both, and other lovely fragrances that draw one hairy beast to another. So, why do they need to date? Just drag their selves out to the great outside and let everyone get a good whiff of them already.
Well, my assumption isn’t wrong here. These shifters smell one another and remark on their odors a lot. The bizarre contradictory of having to date to find one’s fated mate is never addressed though.
Graham, our hero, is pretty much coerced by the Northwestern Shifter Council to go undercover and check out a speed dating thing, because the Council is worried that there will never be a plot to get this story going if they didn’t do that to our hero. He is immediately claimed by Lucy, and what do you know, he starts to believe, in increasing length and girth, that there may be such a thing as fated mates after all.
Lucy’s grand plan for the whole process feels tad clinical, if you ask me, because every activity is planned in advance, with day 25 being earmarked for er, fate-ing the mate. I know, I know, some guys are probably saying that it’s not really speed dating if they had to wait that long. Maybe the speed part is a reference to the duration of the mate fate-ing. Of course, Graham isn’t going to make it easy for her to hold out that long, because this isn’t that long a story, certainly not long enough to cross the 25-day mark.
While this whole thing is as absurd as can be, I find myself smiling at the whole silliness of it all. The author has a fun and zany voice, which comes true loud and clear, and it’s one that appeals to me. Also, I like how Lucy likes to call the shots here and Graham is chill and secure in his manliness to just play along.
“Don’t you dare make me orgasm until your cock is inside of me.”
When a line like that makes me wince only a little, and not cringe like my soul is trying to tear itself free from me, that’s when I think the author has successfully worked its magic on me.
Is this one silly? Yes. Is it shallow and superficial? Absolutely. Does it make sense? Well, I’m not entirely convinced that it does.
Trumping all that, though, is that I’ve had fun. I’ve had a good time chuckling at all the nonsensical tomfoolery here, and that’s good enough for me to give it three smiling-faced oogies.
