Melisse Aires, $0.99, ISBN 978-1301360949
Fantasy Romance, 2009
It used to be that women fleeing an abusive past will have their vehicle breaks down in a lovely city, where she’d meet the nice sheriff that will take her in, cuddle her, and protect her against the terrible world outside. In a modern time, though, sheriffs aren’t in anymore. The hero needs to have the ability to change into some hairy beast, although this ability comes without the unpleasant skin-ripping, people-chewing baggage of being a, you know, real shapeshifter.
Our heroine Letha Richer flees her past and ends up in the lovely town of Encanto Bay, where she realizes that she needs a job to make ends meet.
As she walked up the slight incline to the parking lot she overheard a group of young men in rubber suits, carrying surfboards. “I heard the Encanto Café is hiring. Maybe I’ll check it out.”
“Yeah, like he’s gonna let you off to surf. You need a throwaway job, like Mickey D’s,” one of the other surfer boys said.
“Yeah, maybe you’re right. It’s a night job, though. Good hours. And good tips, too, at the Encanto.”
“Food’s good but the crowd is kinda odd,” one of the boys said.
Isn’t it great when exposition devices show up in the nick of time to let the heroine know what’s up?
Letha soon meets Jagger, a hot and wealthy dude that can shift form into a White Tiger Lover. What, you think a heroine will be allowed to actually clean, take orders, and serve food like a freaking waitress? Oh please, nothing but a life of easy living on her back, both to take in her lover’s pee-pee and to pop out his brats, of course.
I wish I am not joking. Letha fled a creepy cult that believed that she has demonic blood or something. In Encanto Bay, she is immediately told that she is special, and she is then paired off to Jagger to be his baby oven. How is this not a cult? Sure, I mean, the guy she’s going to be serving is hot and wealthy, so he has his perks, but still…
The creepy premise aside, the narrative of the story is pretty clumsily built up. The heroine never really has to work for anything. Even when she drives away from her old cult, no one really stops her. She just drives, meets a new town full of people that immediately tell her that she has special powers and she is accepted by them, and is then thrown onto the pee-pee of a hot and wealthy bloke without having to do anything to attract him. Our heroine is basically just thrown along the tides, so to speak, and these tides sweep her right to the happy ending while all she has to do to deserve her happy ending is to… exist, I guess.
Simply put, this is a short story with short impact and value. Okay, the story can be pretty creepy due to how everyone talks and acts like they are connected to a hive mind, but I suspect that is not what the author had set out to do. At any rate, I’d suggest skipping this one.
