Tessa is a plus sized American who goes on an English TV show. The show is designed to show how people (a Duke and his family and their servants) lives in the Victorian times. Tessa got the job because she was a distant relation to an American who married an English Duke. Max, who plays the Duke, is also a distant relation of the Duke who married the heiress.
Tessa's 1st person narration was laugh out loud funny. But (yeah you knew there was a but!), she was very self-conscious about the size of her body (she is 6ft and a size 18). When it came to Max, I liked the he was attracted to her just as she was. I also liked she was a little older than him (39 to 34). But, the 5 year gap mattered more to Tessa than it did to him. Which was very annoying considering Tessa's husband was 20 years older than her (who died from cancer 3 years prior).
This was a fun, escapist read.
I read this for Romance-opoly Spring square Moon track

Real scholars know that supernatural beings don't exist. But the moment I meet Archer Andras of the Storm Dragons, all my academic training goes out the window. Thanks to Mr. Tall, Dark, And Infuriating, I'm learning that I really should worry about those things that go bump in the night. . . and that dragons like Archer are 100 percent pure trouble. Now I'm caught in the middle of a war. On one side is Archer. On the other is his twin brother. And I am the key to translating an ancient text that could bring balance-or deadly ruin-to our world. But none of that is as dangerous as the seriously sexy sparks between Archer and me. He's too tempting to be real. Too gorgeous to trust. And when it comes to dragons, there's no smoke without deadly fire.

I hadn't read this author in a long time. She’s one of my favorites for Dragon Shifter books so I was REALLY excited to get one of her books on Netgalley. Her books tend to be normal, imperfect, yet strong heroines who put their alpha males in their places. These two main characters definitely fell into those character types. The story was good enough. For some reason I did struggle to get through it a little though. I look forward to reading more from this author.  

**I voluntarily read and reviewed this book

First off, this is a duology, with one...book...too long for a novella... written by another author.

Color me a bit stunned. Usually MacAlister's humor runs to the absurd with a heaping dose of dingbat. Nothing wrong with that I guess but dingbat tends to annoy more than amuse me after a point.

There is no dingbat. The h is intelligent, mildly freaked out but deciding to run with it. The H is intelligent and other than brief glimpses of the self-absorption that wyverns tend to have, is mostly just... a frustrated...dragon? The story is good.

Issues are minor - I still don't get the dragon hunter bit, the heroine utters the word "hoo" a few times after nookie, and her sleezeball boss isn't dealt with at all.

The second novel - Wolf's Mate, by Celia Kyle - is unrelated. It's hard to describe really...maybe like the Furry United Coalition combined with a serious romantic suspense. There's some humor, a lot of suspense, a romance, and well... The h is brainy, has had bad experiences with a anti-shifter organization, and stumbles across something while doing an audit of a company. The H's team is on stakeout of said company after a tip, and notices her behavioral change. They also note the owner is coming back along with armed men. The H goes to her rescue and blows the mission. It's pretty much downhill from there.

The H was destined to be his pack's next alpha but he killed the alpha at the age of 15, after finding him abusing a young shifter female. This - the necessity of his running - did confuse me. After all, isn't it the usual method for the alpha to get ousted by his replacement? Usually violently? In any case, he apparently became a contract killer with a conscience in that he wouldn't take out anyone who didn't deserve it...until he got caught and found himself ordered to join SHOC (it's the acronyms that remind me of the other series, really) or else. So apparently his inner wolf spotted the h and decided she was his, thus breaking cover, and all sorts of hijinks later.

Was both as bad as, and better than, I expected.

Better than, in the sense that our h, tossed into a world she had no clue existed by virtue of her dying half sister biting her, doesn't bumble around like an idiot (thanks to the dragon-hunter thing making her have at least enough fighting ability to take care of herself) Granted, it's kinda convenient in that she wasn't actually trained but given past heroines who've spent the entire book being threatened by everyone for being clueless...and who've also spent a lot of their book doing dumb things...

The H is one of the more intelligent heroes the author has come up with (some have been almost as big a dingbat as the h)

The story isn't bad, though there are a few moments that seem overly drawn out.

The part though that kills me is... many of the heroines the author creates, no matter where they come from or how old they seemingly are, have the same voice. They all seem to use the same slang to express excitement, they all seem to chatter a lot - and often about the same thing - during nookie. And yes; the h does indeed say "hoo!" repeatedly and give a running commentary during the foreplay. At least she did shut up when tab A finally was inserted. Gaaah!

Random bits - how does this tie into the regular dragon series? I mean; the description of the dragon hunters doesn't really make sense.