Goldilocks with a twist
This book, a sexy twist on Goldilocks, seems to be part serious, part satire, & the mix is a bit off. For instance, the bears’ names seem like they should be funny, like Ruxpin, but the introductions don’t draw the reader to join in the joke, so it’s odd rather than cute.
There are a bunch of typos, including a lot of near word substitutions like cyphering for siphoning, clamoring for clambering, and to for due. It’s understandable enough but seems like it wasn’t copy edited. I found Riley & Theo’s first encounter problematic (no condom) but possibly in keeping with the world building, so not disqualifying on its own. The parts I really disliked were Theo’s macho posturing. He didn’t get mad at people for pushing his kids or breaking an item Riley cared about, he got mad that his rivals touched his property. He didn’t care to protect them from harm so much as protecting them from theft. He could have been written as a protector, not just a collector/possessor, so the toxicity was unnecessary. If you like that kind of thing, you’d probably rate it higher. There’s also some native religious bit, but I don’t know anything of the author to know if it’s appropriation, but it felt like it was.
Basically, it’s an adult Goldilocks who’s DTF. It wasn’t as fun as I was hoping for, but it’s a decent effort. Most of my complaints are endemic to the shifter genre, so if you like those things in your romances more than I do, and expect some goofy names from the get go, you might enjoy this more than I did.