Update

Here is what's happening with this book now. I'm rewriting it. :(
I finished the first draft in April, and when I got it back from the editor, I realized from her comments that I'd failed to write the book I wanted. Somehow, most of the angst and emotions that were churning in my head in regards to the plot and characters didn't fully translate themselves on the paper. Instead of publishing a book I myself would not have wanted to read, I decided to delay the release date until I got it right.
I'm now over 60% into the rewrites and am immensely happy with the results so far. I love emotionally charged relationships and passionate characters in books, and Monster is not an easy guy to love, but I've made myself fall in love with him now, and I'm much more confident the readers will fall in love with him too.
Unfortunately, I still can't give you the release date. There are still weeks worth of work in terms of rewrites and editing left. But I sent chapter 1 to my email subscribers a couple of weeks ago and want to share it here too. (Warning: Not proofread yet.)

TO LOVE A MONSTER. Chapter 1.
He leaped out of the icy water onto the rocky riverbank and shook his hide, enjoying the feeling of the chilly autumn air on his damp fur.
Rising on his hind legs, he stretched up to his full height, sniffing the air.
The breeze was in the wrong direction. He didn’t smell them yet, but he FELT the trespassing. He was all the way by the river boarding his property at the east. The intruders must have entered from the road to the west.
The property was in the middle of nowhere, even for the deep wilderness of Northern Canada. The closest place with electricity was hours away, and it was better accessible by air than by car. A seven-foot chain-link fence with coiled barbed wire on top marked the boundaries of the property along the narrow dirt road, but it only went about a hundred feet into the woods on each end.
The rest of his territory was surrounded by a single barbed wire stretched between six-foot tall posts placed at regular intervals along the perimeter. It was meant to allow game to pass through for him to hunt.
He had no idea what date it was, but judging by the leaves falling from the trees and the frost on the ground in the morning, it must have been around October, maybe November. Either way, the hunting season would be in full swing.
There were plenty of Private Property, No Trespassing and even Violators Will Be Prosecuted signs placed all along the wire. However, this didn’t seem to deter the occasional hunter from crossing over in a pursuit of a deer or an elk during the hunting season.
As long as it was the deer that they were after, he had nothing to worry, except that people in general were a nuisance.
Maybe the cougar will get them.
The cunning cat had been stalking him for years. Of course when he wished him to show up and chase the intruders away, the cougar wouldn’t be around.
He pulled in another lungful of air, searching for any foreign scent on the breeze. Nothing. Still, the nagging feeling of the intrusion wouldn’t leave him, forcing him to move west, towards the house. It couldn’t hurt to make sure the hunters stayed away from it.
He sped up until he broke into a full-on sprint, his paws hitting the leaf-covered ground soundlessly.
Hot blood pounded through his veins along with the satisfaction of being alive.
Further west, an inhale of air finally brought in the scent of the strangers, making him stop in his tracks so abruptly, he almost tumbled over his head like a clumsy puppy.
The scent wasn’t what he expected.
None of the usual smell of oil and gunpowder of a hunter—a faint scent of fancy cologne and delicate flowery perfume filled the air reaching his sensitive nose. And it was the subtle, delicate scent of female bodies underneath the perfume that hit him like a punch in a gut.
His blood boiled, his vision clouded and his cock hardened so painfully fast, it slapped his underbelly with force.
Primal need forced him up onto his hind legs again. He threw his head back, his long horns pressed against his shoulder blades. He flexed his fingers, releasing razor-sharp claws, and roared into the cold air around him.
The mating call of a beast reverberated through the woods, bouncing off the tree trunks in cascading echoes.
Copyright @ Marina Simcoe