Bear Meets Girl (Pride, #7)Bear Meets Girl by Shelly Laurenston

My rating: 4 of 5 flames

This is a fun, fast and funny book. This whole series is like that, though; full of fun and great banter.

Lou Crushek is an undercover cop when he gets transferred from NYPD to the shifter division. Crush’s cover has been blown by his former foster mother Peg, who conveniently runs BCP. Crush hates change. It makes him cranky.

Cella is the loud-mouthed KZS operative who also plays professional hockey for the Carnivores. They call her “Bare Knuckles Malone” since she is such a brawler. When she wakes up on top of the grumpy but cute polar bear shifter Crush, she plays with him a little. Crush had one too many Jello shots and woke up with a naked feline shifter who won’t keep her paws to herself.

The attraction, the banter and the romance are so fun and sweet. I liked that they didn’t kiss until about halfway through the book because it was right in keeping with their characters and their slow build up. In fact, I don’t think I could have asked for anything more from these characters-they were so completely different from each other and yet they worked so well together!

I think the suspense plot was awesome, but under-used. I felt like it was completely put on the backburner. The BCP, the KZS, and the Group are all working together on a mission, when the BCP goes crazy shooting at them. Peg is after the guys who are hunting their kind for sport, KZS and the Group are just getting wind of this, and they are not happy, to say the least. Humans hunting shifters? Absolutely unacceptable. There were a few good action scenes and a good fight, but really, that was it. It’s like this part of the plot was only used when it was convenient, rather than being utilized throughout the book. There’s a small part with a human who helps rescue a lion shifter that I really hope becomes the next book, because I think those two are gonna make sparks fly off the pages.

On the whole, this is my favorite in Shelly Laurenston’s Pride series and absolutely a book you should read when you’re alone or when no one around you is asleep. I found out the hard way, there were so many parts that I laughed at, and giggled at, and quietly made awful choking noises because I couldn’t laugh out loud for fear of waking up hubs and kids

The part where I laughed so loud I woke my dog up was this scene:

“Does Novikov have tusks?” Marly asked.

“They’re not tusks,” Blayne yelled while slowly dragging herself to her feet. “They’re fangs. Like the mighty saber-toothed cat of yore.”

Marly scratched her head. “Yore?”

This part is once scene where Cella keeps calling Crush her pretend boyfriend, because that’s how they start out:

“I need you to keep an eye out for Blayne,” she whispered.

“Why?”

“Because I asked you to. God, what kind of a pretend boyfriend are you?”

“A confused and fictitious one?”

“Yeah yeah.” she grabbed his hand.”Come on.”

This part is between Dez and Crush:

“All you owe Cella…is nuzzling. You know, bear love.”

“Bear love? Something else you saw on National Geographic?”

“Or Animal Planet. Both are very helpful in dealing with my husband and my new crop of friends that aren’t canines.”

**ARC provided by Kensington

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