While the basic story is all right, it suffers from some really silly problems, like grammatical mistakes and continuity errors which a decent editor (hint, hint) could have picked up and corrected.

What it cannot recover from is the real lack of character development beyond the really basic. The whole "aw, isn't it sweet he gets along with the kids" just does not prove to me that Jordan and Jake have a real future together. Normally, I have no problem with stories featuring kids, but with this one, I finally understand why a lot of readers get really annoyed by their presence. The kids in this book are not bad, they just took up space in the narrative that could have been better used to developing the relationship between Jordan and Jake.

There are maybe three or four scenes in which they are together sans other characters: one where they are drinking a glass of whiskey together, one where they shift into their respective animals (Jordan is a fox, Jake is a lion), play chase, then go skinny dipping together, and after their mating ceremony when they finally get down to the nitty-gritty and go at it. Both keep thinking about talking about their life together, but neither one ever really starts a conversation.

I wanted to see the little moments outside of the family ones where Jordan and Jake actually connect on a emotional level. They never even get a date before the mating, nor, given the length of the book, do we see them connect beyond their mutual need to take care of the kids. Yes, they have the all important mating bite that connects them on a psychic level, but even that won't work if they are not communicating on the more real, physical level (and no, sex, no matter how "great" it may be, is not enough to prove that they can get along outside the bedroom).

I enjoyed the first book in this series, but thanks to the current book, I am reluctant to read further. ( )