Wolf With Benefits by Shelly Laurenston

Item: Wolf With Benefits
Rating: 4
Author: Spice

June 29, 2015 Spice Book Review 0 ★★★★

Wolf With Benefits by Shelly Laurenston
Series: Pride #8
Also in this series: The Mane Attraction, The Mane Squeeze, Beast Behaving Badly (Pride, #5)
Published by Kensington on March 26, 2013
Genres: Paranormal
Pages: 421
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Ricky Lee has no plans of getting serious about anyone, but he will protect Toni Jean-Louis Parker. Not just because he’s been hired to do so, but because it’s the right thing to do. And if that means traveling around the country with one complicated She-jackal, dealing with chocolate-eating wild dogs, instigating trouble between his brothers, and having the most amazing sex he’s ever had…well, who said his job didn’t have perks?

Toni doesn’t know how she keeps getting herself into these situations. But even she has to admit there’s something about Ricky Lee Reed that she finds kind of interesting…and downright sexy. Now they just have to survive long enough to figure out if what they have is worth fighting for…

This book may be unsuitable for people under 17 years of age due to its use of sexual content, drug and alcohol use, and/or violence.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book.

It’s not a secret that I’m a Shelly Laurenston fan so when ARC’s were offered for the release of the paperback version of Wolf With Benefits I jumped on it. Just like any other Laurenston book, I laughed a lot, but this one felt like it was missing something.

Ricky Lee, our hero, was a lot more laid back than any other wolf from the Smith Pack I’ve read about. He was happy as long as he could be entertained. I usually fall in love with SL’s heroes, and I did like him a lot, but I never had that “oh, he’s so hot and sweet” moment. I do have to say any guy who could put up with Toni’s family without shooting them all definitely gets brownie points.

Toni wasn’t your usual SL heroine either. Although she had loyalty in spades, she had to be pushed before you saw the strength come out. In fact, most of the time I kind of put her in the “sweet but needs to quit being a doormat” category. The eldest and only child that’s not a prodigal in a family of about a bazillion kids, she had a wee bit of an inferiority complex going on. She spent all her time raising her parents unbelievably smart and talented but totally spoiled and bratty kids. She did all the scheduling, took them to all their lessons etc. while her parents did their own thing. When she finally was somewhat forced by well-meaning family friends into possibly getting away from her family’s expectations and making a life and career of her own, her family and their antics were constantly guilting her back in. While the kids were entertaining and cracked me up a lot, her being constantly railroaded was kind of painful to watch.

My main complaint about this book: it wasn’t really a romance. Great story that had me in stitches laughing, but I can honestly say I finished the book with the feeling that Ricky Lee and Toni were in “like” with each other, found themselves extremely compatible in bed, and decided to be together because they seemed like a good fit. Very little time was spent on their relationship and you never got the sense that there were any big feelings involved. Most of the book centered on Toni’s batshit crazy family and their scheduling issues, Toni’s job and its issues (I did love the Russian bears), and the mystery of who was after Toni’s family and why.

Again, I loved this story. It was funny and had some really interesting things going on. I loved all the cameos from some of my favorite people from not only this series but the Magnus Pack series. I just don’t think it can be classified as a romance book. More like paranormal with a little heat. Wonderful book that I truly am glad I read, just not what I expected.

Rating: 4 Stars