Bear in a Bakery

I got this as one of those Load Your Kindle with All the Romance!! giveaways, and the fact that it didn't get deleted within the first chapter is a point in its favor! Am I into romantasy or shapeshifters or anything supernatural? Nope. Did I utter the words, “if this human woman fucks a bear, I'm out”? YES, YES I DID.

So this chick Allie (cool name btw) owns a bakery and it's a chaos monster because she's dealing with damage from a raccoon invasion and water damage and other chaos, but it's cool cool because this hot ripped dude Dax shows up and he's like I'll fix it all while not wearing a shirt and also I'll pay for all the repairs and also I'd like 1000 bacon cupcakes and oh by the way you're my mate and I have 3 days to find a Forever Mate or I lose the ability to have cubs and have to be Alone Forever. Which sure, except Allie has been burned before by a shitty shapeshifter boyfriend, and it's all Too Fast! And also she's very busy dealing with this crazy* lady who's trying to put Allie out of business by being a general asshole and also trying to seduce Allie's father by being a crazy lady.

There's a lot of gross mentions of mating and needing to have cubs which is weird because it's never clear if Allie is expected to have like ... human babies or shapeshifters or literal bear cubs, and it's all just ick the way Dax's family keeps talking about her as a Cub Receptacle. He transforms into a bear exactly twice, and never during sexy times THANK GOODNESS. The bear is for violence and letting out aggression, apparently! I don't understand.

2.5 stars. It was entertaining, but I won't be continuing the series. Could have used a little bit of editing, but nothing too egregious or anything.

TW: verbal and physical abuse by a former intimate partner, gaslighting, pregnancy

*I don't generally use the word crazy as a descriptor, but I literally can't think of any other way to describe her. She is a mustache-twirling villain, if mustache-villains threw fancy parties, and showed up at people's houses in trenchcoats with nothing on under them, and happened to have a mouse vendor for setting vermin loose in bakeries.