3.5 Stars
This is just your typical, novella length, M/M shifter romp, featuring a lot in the way of mates, possessive claiming, insta-everything, and less in the way of detailed plot or character development.
Here we follow Ridley, a young, skinny, red-headed man, living a simple yet somewhat lonely life in small town Nebraska, as he realises that the sexy, seemingly unattainable man named Flynn, who keeps showing up at the diner where Ridley works day in and day out, is not only a shifter, but the alpha to the local leap of leopard shifters....and apparently also Ridley’s fated mate.
This was sappy and fun, but oftentimes a little ridiculous, especially with Ridley’s basement levels of low self-esteem and his failure to comprehend exactly how much Flynn wants him for keeps. Their relationship was super-fast moving, but who the hell cares when all the sweet and sexy mate-feelings are present and accounted for.
I particularly enjoyed the humour present in this story. In general, being in Ridley’s head was wildly amusing; the guy internally monologued some great stuff, however silly, and I found myself smiling more often than not. And I may have had a good, long chuckle over the events in the epilogue, when Ridley’s best friend Benny, also a leopard shifter, “played dead” when the local bear shifter began stalking towards him like he was prey. The visual of him on the ground acting dead and everyone’s reactions to this was absolutely hilarious, in the most ridiculously silly way possible. (I look forward to reading Benny’s story within the series).
Overall, I had fun reading this, because when a shifter book is written well, which I feel this particular story was, I’m more than happy to throw my need for story depth out the window and just bask in the simple joy of reading a fluffy and fun tale about a pair of fated mates and their heated claiming.