Unbearable Desire is the fourth book in Vivi Andrews Lone Pine Pride series. After reading and enjoying Andrews’ Serengeti Shifters series, I was pretty excited to dive into this one.

Over a decade ago, Moira had a brief fling with Hugo, a fellow bear shifter. When he invited her to join the Lone Pine Pride, she had believed that he was inviting her to share his life. Her hopes were dashed when she arrived on his doorstep a week later. Hugo hadn’t meant to give Moira the impression that they would be together, because his heart already belonged to another. Despite the rejection and humiliation, Moira decided to stay with the pride and to build a life for herself. Over ten years later, Hugo is starting to regret his decision but isn’t sure how to go about mending fences.

Unbearable Desire is about crushed expectations, which is one of my favorite tropes. When Moira first met Hugo, she had dreamt of a happy future with him and quickly found that she had put the cart before the horse. Hugo, for his part, let the idea of a grand forbidden love blind him to any other relationship. I liked that both parties were, essentially, in the wrong and that Moira didn’t spend all the intervening years pining away for Hugo. While she’s still attracted to him, she has ruled out the possibility of them having a relationship. So, she’s a little baffled and pretty bitter when Hugo suddenly seems to change his mind after all these years.

I only wish this had been a little longer to give Moira and Hugo more time to work things out and ease into the relationship. Things were pretty rushed once Hugo decided to pursue Moira, with a lot of things happening in quick succession. The pacing made the catalyst at the end feel like a rash decision for Moira, rather than one she came to naturally and would stick to. While I felt Moira may regret her decision, I was positive that Hugo wouldn’t. Andrews did an excellent job of showing Hugo get closure with his long term obsession.

All in all, Unbearable Desire was a great quick read. If you like Vivian Arend or Dana Marie Bell, you’ll find something to enjoy here.

***ARC provided by Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.***

While driving on a deserted highway in Nevada, Claudia Hunter spots a miserable heap of fur at the side of the road. Taking pity on the creature, she pulls over to investigate and finds a large dog that looks like it has been dragged behind a car for miles. Unwilling to put the dog down, Claudia ends up transporting it to the nearest vet, only to discover that what she thought was a dog is actually a Wyr and the crime is much more insidious then extreme animal abuse.

Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this one as much as the previous novella in the series, True Colors. However, Natural Evil was a pretty good read.

Claudia is an emotionally distant ex-soldier and she kicks some pretty serious ass throughout this story. I loved having her paired with Luis, the hero, who is young, energetic, and rather optimistic. The ending, despite not being a traditional happily-ever-after, was really appropriate for the main characters but it left me hoping that these two will be revisited in a future book. My only real compliant is that Luis wasn't as fleshed out as Claudia, which might've been due to of how much page time he spends in his dog form.

All in all, this was a fun short story and I would recommend this to anyone looking for a good short paranormal romance.

Charles is struggling with how brutal his role as Bram's axe-man is, now that people know werewolves exist. Anna, noticing disturbing changes in Charles' state of mind, brings her concern to Bram who harshly brushes her off. Unfortunately, everyone seems to think that Anna is bitching because she can't handle what Charles does anymore. After Bram finally recognizes that Charles is struggling, he decides to send Charles and Anna out to solve a spree of serial murders. Bram and Anna both hope that giving Charles this opportunity to help people rather than act as an executioner will help him overcome whatever he's struggling with.

Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this one as much as others in the series, but it was still a great addition. My main problem stemmed from the fact that too much time had passed in Anna and Charles' world. In second book, Hunting Ground, Anna was still struggling with her place in Charles' life and with her past. At the end of the second book, there were still a lot of emotional issues that Anna needed to overcome and I looked forward to watching her do that in future books. However, as Fair Game opens, it looks like Anna has solved all those issues. Suddenly she's confident enough to not only face-off with Bram (the alpha) but to argue with him while he's in a rage. I was thrown by this because it's a huge difference from Anna in the first two books. In Hunting Ground she couldn't even sit in a room with alpha wolves, but now she can stand her ground against one of the most powerful ones out there? This huge leap in Anna's progress really made it feel like I somehow missed a short story or novel before this book that would explain where this new confidence came from.

Aside from the sudden change in Anna's mental state, I really loved the storyline here. Seeing her and Charles' relationship flipped from what it was in previous books, with Anna acting as the rock and Charles the emotionally unstable one, was really great. I loved the feeling of equality and balance it added to their relationship. The side-characters were also intriguing here, especially in regards to the ending. Seriously, that ending was pretty bad-ass and I can't wait to see what Briggs does with the fall-out from it in future books.

Crush is an ex-cop who, after a party, wakes up naked with Marcella Malone. Crush wants nothing more than to just forget the whole incident and return to his stable life. Unfortunately, he can't shake Marcella off, as no matter where he goes she seems to pop-up. Much to Crush's frustration she also seems to get her jollies by embarrassing him.

I was really looking forward to Bear Meets Girl, but it didn't live up to expectations. In fact, I think this was probably my least favorite Laurenston book yet. Crush bored me, which was sad since I typically really enjoy Laurenston's bear-shifters. It felt like Laurenston went a little too far aiming for an up-tight hero and just gave us a bland one. I enjoyed Marcella's character a lot more. She goes out of her way to torment Crush every chance she gets, which made for some pretty funny moments. However, the attraction between her and Crush was non-existent until near the very end and even then it felt kind of...tacked on. The way Laurenston ended the book didn't help with that feeling either. The story ends abruptly and left me wondering if my e-book somehow didn't download all of the book.

All in all, I wouldn't recommend this one unless you're a die-hard fan of the series.

Pack Challenge opens with Sara getting drunk off her ass in celebration of her grandmother's death. The fact that the abusive woman died months ago and the whole town is still ecstatic, shows just how evil the old bat was. During Sara's revelry, she ends up sticking her tongue down a biker's throat, but before things go much further Sara is pried off the guy by her two best friends. Sara isn't really someone who gropes random men without the motivation of tequila, so when the biker shows up at her work the next day she's a bit embarrassed.

Sara was an interesting character. Her leg is screwed up from when she was mauled by a mountain lion, so she spends 90 percent of the book limping around town. Turns out that the lion was actually a shifter seeking revenge against Sara's family and, with the death of her grandmother, the lion is back to trying to kill her. Bad thing is that Sara doesn't know that monsters are real and she especially doesn't know that she's a wolf shifter.

I really don't care for storylines centered on the main character discovering that vampires, werewolves, etc. are real. The whole chain of denial, proving, and slowly coming to terms gets a little boring. That was my main problem with this book. I got bored with Sara slowly discovering the paranormal aspects of her world, especially since it eclipsed the whole lions are trying to kill her plot.

The romance between Sara and the hero (Zach) was also dull. I liked Zach, but he wasn't the most interesting Laurenston hero I've read. Zach has a game plan and that doesn't include a meaningful relationship. His current goal is to become pack leader and sleep with a crap ton of women. So when he meets Sara he's immediately intrigued and scared shit-less by the intense attraction he has to her. He's determined to just tell her she's a wolf shifter and high-tail it out of town. But, of course, things don't go according to his plan.

All in all, I'd recommend this book for fans of Shelly Laurenston, but if you're looking to get into this author I would suggest starting with Beast Behaving Badly.