"an excellent anthology for lovers of erotic shapeshifter romance"
In FOXFIRE by Margaret Carter, Tabitha is a writer by
choice and a reluctant empath who, in order to preserve her
sanity, has taken up residence in the wooded isolation of
the Blue Ridge Mountains in a cabin left to her by her
late, kindred spirit grandmother. When Chloe, Tabitha's rebellious and angry teenage sister,
runs away from home and turns up on Tabitha's doorstep,
bringing with her a healthy dose of familial strife and
turmoil, the peace and serenity that Tabitha had been
enjoying during her self-exile is all but shattered. Kenji McGraw, a furniture builder and Tabitha's nearest
neighbor, has secrets and reasons of his own for living as
a relative hermit, and none of them involve Tabitha's
psychic abilities. He and Tabitha have so far only shared cordial how-do-you-
dos, until a chance meeting on the road the morning of
Chloe's unceremonious arrival results in a telepathically
charged, embarrassingly erotic encounter that leaves the
neighbors shaken and confused. When Chloe sneaks out in the dead of night to meet with her
boyfriend, Tabitha waylays the boyfriend and convinces him
that Chloe will not be meeting him. She is however forced
to ask for Kenji's assistance in tracking her sister when
Chloe turns up missing, never having arrived for her
prearranged tryst. On top of harboring the willful minor,
Tabitha now faces the prospect of parental disappointment
and wrath when Kenji finds Chloe lost in the woods with a
broken leg and the teen has to be taken to the hospital. Thrown together now by necessity and choice, Tabitha and
Kenji explore the heat between them to discover the wonder
of their gifts and the advantages of ending their solitary
existences to form a romantic bond and be together. In SURVIVOR by Liddy Midnight, Doug "Phoenix" is a standing
Air Force fighter pilot in a not-too-distant future where
the World Peace Treaty has been in effect for the last nine
years. Consequently, Doug and his comrades of the Screaming
Dragon Squadron keep their skills sharp through drills and
performing at air shows rather than actual fighting. Doug is the sole survivor of a tragic fire that took his
family when he was child. He considers the colorful men of
the Screaming Dragons his brothers, the only family he has.
When a disastrous miscue in the air takes the lives of half
his squadron, leaving the other half critically injured if
not dead, Doug soon finds out that the erotic dreams he has
been having lately of a mahogany-skinned, silver-haired
goddess are in fact premonitions. Harna is a widowed field worker ecstatic to leave her life
of drudgery and vault to a place of importance in her
settlement once she begins having dreams of the Chosen. A
legendary warrior and harbinger of the enclave's
approaching hour of greatest need, Doug is Harna's
reluctant Chosen. But not even after he, in dragon form,
rescues Harna, also in dragon form, from a flock of
attacking harriers does he believe these wild claims.
Deciding he was critically injured in the air show crash,
he believes Harna and her world of mages, weres and
swarming scavengers is a figment of his comatose
imagination that will all go away once the medicinal drugs
wear off and the pain kicks in. Harna's bravery and patience and the cooperation and
enthusiasm of her people gradually breaks through Doug's
skepticism, and he has no choice except to relent and agree
to train the settlement to protect itself from the
harriers, thus fulfilling the enclave's prophesies and
Harna's own erotic dreams. In TAKING SHAPE by Tielle St. Clare, Nick Conner heads a
private investigation firm with his two brothers and
sister. He finds it increasingly difficult to practice what
he preaches and abide his company's motto, "get in, blend
in, and get out without being noticed", when he is
approached by the president of AirPress and asked to
investigate an embezzler. And once he makes actual contact
with the beautiful and sexy target, following his
conscience and the demands of his job becomes near
impossible. Industrious, loyal and too competent for her own good,
Tally Hayward comes in weekends and brings work home to
finish up a project that she insists on seeing to the end
before she takes over her new duties after a promotion. She
is the last employee anyone would ever suspect of
embezzling. She is, however, the first her employers would
set up for a crime when her diligence and thoroughness puts
her superiors in a bind and leads them to take increasingly
drastic measures to thwart Tally's inquiries. It's not Nick's job to decide his target's guilt or
innocence, only to gather facts. The glaring undeniable
fact so far is the target's irresistible sensual quotient
has Nick's hormone's in overdrive, the private investigator
is in a constant state of arousal and ready to set aside
his professional and personal ethics in order to get close
to and have Tally Hayward. Nick breaks the first rule of
shifting, "no intimate contact with a target while in
another person's form" when, under the guise of her soon-to-
be-out-on-his-ass boyfriend Richard, he has sex with Tally
instead of, as previously planned, searching through her
computer once he gains access to her house. Once Tally is taken into custody by the police and accused
of murder, the mystery of Richard's sudden transformation
begins to fall into place as she uses him for an alibi and
he denies being with her at the time of the murder. It's up
to Nick and his siblings to come to the rescue and get
Tally off the hook. But not before Nick has to come clean
about his ability and risk Tally's trust with the
revelation of his betrayal. All three stories are fast-paced and tightly-woven, the
characters engaging and spirited, and the h/h chemistry
combustible. My favorite piece, however, was the last-but-
definitely-not-least TAKING SHAPE that liberally sprinkled
doses of humor (the rubber ducky vibrator and puppy dog
scenes are LOL funny) in with the red-hot sensual
encounters between Tally and Nick. A great read and an excellent anthology for lovers of
erotic shapeshifter romance. Posted December 27, 2005
Reviewed by Gracie McKeever
Posted November 20, 2006
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