Review – Mr. Red Riding Hoode by Dana Marie Bell

Publisher: Samhain
Publish Date: November 12th
How I got this book: eARC from publisher

When it came down to saving his best friend Ben’s relationship, Steven Hoode didn’t hesitate to trade his Florida timeshare for a month at Red Wolf Lodge. Cold weather isn’t his favorite thing, but hot snow bunnies are, so he plans to make the most of his vacation.

Good karma kicks in when he sees a pretty brunette chatting with the lodge owner. All thoughts of nuptials and nookie take a back seat to the heat that flares between them.

When Graciela “Chela” Mendoza catches sight of the gorgeous man shivering in a red-hooded parka, she realizes why he makes her heart beat faster. He’s her mate. The problem? Steven has no idea his friends are Wolves.

Chela plans to break it to him gently, but when he accidentally witnesses the whole Pack shifting, things get a bit…hairy. He bolts, locking himself in his cabin and refusing to listen, even to Ben.

Unless she can get him to see that Wolves are people, too, Chela will lose her mate faster than she can say woof.

Warning: This book contains explicit sex, graphic language, a man packing some nice goodies and a she-Wolf all ready to gobble them up.
*Blurb from Goodreads*

I really enjoyed the first book in the Poconos Pack series, so I was super excited to read more about the wolves in the mountains. While I really enjoyed this book, I forgot how short these stories really are, and I felt like there was so much more that could have been told.

Steve isn’t a fan of the cold, but he’s looking forward to visiting his best friend Ben. Laying eyes on one of Ben’s friends, Graciela, is an added bonus. Finding out they are all werewolves and Chela is his mate is almost more than Steve can handle.

Chela is determined to make Steve hers, but coaxing him to accept the fact that she’s a werewolf isn’t easy. Hopefully with some hilarious dog jokes, and lots of naked time, Chela will be able to show Steve how normal life as a werewolf is, so that she can finally claim her mate.

There was so much that was missing for me in this book. I don’t know if it was just the really short page count or what, but I really felt like there was so much missing in the execution of this novella. There was the potential to be so much more, especially given how freaked Steve was when he witnessed his lover, best friend, and other childhood friends naked in a clearing all changing into wolves. However, it felt so rushed in that a few funny dog pictures and some naked time was enough to bring Steve around completely to the wolfy way of life. I guess it just felt a little ridiculous how quickly things moved for them, but I guess that’s what you get when there are only so many pages in the story.

I sincerely hope that this is fixed for the final copy, however the beginning of chapter two was completely out of line in context with the rest of the story. They had just met at the end of chapter one, and suddenly they are all cuddly and sexy and in “their” cabin and it just didn’t add up. I went back and re-read chapters one and two three times before I finally figured out that, timeline wise, shit wasn’t adding up. It completely threw me out of the flow of the story, and confused me horribly. **Update – I was told this was a mate dream. However, there was no distinguishing this being an ACTUAL dream, which is still pretty confusing to me.  🙁

One of the things that I enjoyed though was the fact that we got to see all of the Poconos shifters we’ve come to know and love. I adored getting to see more of Ben and Dave, Rick and Belle. I think it’s wonderful that Bell does such a great job of keeping up with her previous characters. I’m excited to see how things work out with Charlie becoming part of the pack as well, since I adore her character.

All in all I was a little disappointed with this book. Not only was it over way too quickly, but it also felt so incredibly rushed in both the romance and plot department. I would have liked to see things pulled out, dragged on, explored further instead of the magic mates fixing everything within mere pages. However, getting the chance to see some of my old favorites is always a treat.
I give Mr. Red Riding Hoode a C-

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