1/9/18

Review: Where the Wild Things Bite by Molly Harper

Format: mass market
Pub Date: August 2016
Publisher: Pocket
Length: 278 pages
POV: 1st person, past tense
FTC: Received for free at RT Booklovers Convention

I'm trying to get back into the swing of blogging, carving out time to fire up the ole computer and sit down to write. I missed it this last year when I somehow ended up so busy I wasn't even reading. Which, predictably, made me more than a little cranky. A reading Amber is a happy Amber.

I've been better about reading lately, but not so much about reviewing. My one goal that I managed to keep this last year was reading more from my TBR and less from new releases. I get distracted by the shiny, when I have rooms full of unread print books and I don't even know how many ebooks.

One book I picked up at the last RT was a Molly Harper book. Now I'd read some of her earlier books and liked them. They were light and silly and easily consumed. I had not read any of her newer books, and this one is clearly part of an ongoing series.



I wish I could say I loved it, but I had some serious issues with it. For starters, the premise begins with a plane crash. Then there's lots of tromping around the marshes with an unknown vampire. There's a serious lack of trust from hour 1 of the adventure, and I did not really buy the relationship that supposedly blossoms between the two of them.

Worse for me, though, was all of the secondary characters who had clearly already had their own book and whose backstory was sprinkled throughout this one. I felt like I was starting in the middle of the story without understanding a bunch of inside jokes. This is supposed to technically stand alone, but it really doesn't do it well.

The final sin of the book is that we spend far more time with Anna trying to deal with her mental health and self confidence issues than we do with the romance. I mean, that's fine when it's not a romance, but I expected most of the page time to be spent building a relationship between the two main characters.

Fans of Harper's will probably like it, but this book just didn't click with me.

My Grade: C- 
The Blurb:
 In Molly Harper’s witty new paranormal romance, a rare-book expert is delivering a package to Half Moon Hollow when her plane goes down, and a sexy vampire comes to her rescue. He’s clearly got ulterior motives, but does he want to date her…or devour her?

Delivering a rare book to a valued customer is definitely part of mild-mannered archivist Anna Whitfield’s job description. You know what isn’t? Protecting her precious cargo from mid-flight theft by the very pilot who is flying her to Half-Moon Hollow…while trying to appear as unappetizing as possible to the only other passenger, a vampire. Undead bookstore owner Jane Jameson could be waiting a very long time for her book. Possibly forever.

Fortunately, Anna’s dashing fanged companion Finn Palmeroy helps her fend off the attack, but not before their plane crash lands in the forest hundreds of miles from civilization. Great, now she’s stranded with a priceless tome and a rakish vampire whose bedtime is fast approaching. Why does everyone want this book so badly, anyway? Anna just wants to get it to Jane before Finn decides to turn her into dinner—or sweep her off her feet. Okay, the second option is really tempting. But they’re not out of the woods yet…

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