Unacceptable Risk

Long, engrossing, and somewhat somber paranormal M/M romance between a lonely veterinarian and a wolf shifter who is disliked by his pack for his sexuality. Lots of political maneuvering among pack members and a fair amount of violence. The love story has a HFN ending (the MCs are definitely together but there is lingering danger, and the human MC is still adjusting to the fact that he is mated to the wolf MC). I was in the mood for something a bit darker yet hopeful, so it very much worked for me, but it is quite different from the author's contemporary romances.

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You all know me by now, I think. You all know how much I adore werewolves. I picked up Unacceptable Risk late last year when I saw that it was free on Kindle. It had semi-decent reviews on Goodreads, so I went for it. Welll....good news / bad news — good news is Goodreads was actually right on the money with this one. The reviews were all truthful, and made sense to me once I finished the book. Bad news is — I maybe wasted my time on a werewolf book that just didn't hit the buttons I needed it to press. I say maybe, because I did enjoy quite a lot of this book. There was just something missing, and I believe I know what it was.

Paul is a vet. In the very first part of the novel we see him almost run over a very injured wolf. Of course, this wolf is our main werewolf — Simon. I really, thoroughly liked Simon. He was just plain likeable. He wanted what was best for Paul, but he was more than a little pushy without meaning to be. The author waves this off by saying it's Simon's wolf who wants to take care of Paul, but it almost came across as creepy. Almost. (He has food delivered to Paul's vet office almost every day. Wants to cook him dinner, feed him, etc.) He was very protective, very caring, it was just a lot all at once.

Poor Paul was struggling with the idea of suddenly finding men attractive — he'd thought he was straight before he met Simon. Things escalate VERY quickly with them. It sort of works in the werewolf setting, but Paul struggles with everything throughout the whole novel. I thought it would maybe get better as the book went on, but really at the end of the day it felt like Paul didn't want to be where he was. It sort of ruined the whole thing for me. Paul was so wishywashy — understandably — he kept switching hot and cold on how he felt about everything. It felt odd.

Not to mention that the entire plot hedged around the fact that the majority of Simon's werewolf pack wanted to kill him because he was gay. This book was written in 2011, which explains why it felt so DATED. Seriously, this sort of plot didn't work as well for me in 2023 as it probably would have back then. It felt very...I don't know... it isn't unrealistic, it just felt overdramatic? That's not even the right word. I don't know what I'm trying to say here other than the book feels it's age.

Anyway, I liked most of the characters, I just wish they had been played with in a slightly different way. Three and a half stars.