Jessie Lane – Big Bad Bite

The first book in the Big Bad Bite series, published January 28, 2013.
Genre: urban fantasy
Cover: nice



What would it be like to live in a world where you are considered abnormal to those who are above the norm?
Jenna O' Conner has been taught her whole life to hide from everyone. Never to let anyone to close enough to know that she would prefer a shotgun for her birthday over of a bouquet of roses. She's been smothered by her over protective family so that no one learns what she truly is. Which is not human. Nor, is she considered the norm for the supernatural Other community that is benevolent enough to share this world with the humans.
In a desperate attempt to live her own life away from the small town she was raised in, Jenna obtains her dream job as the newest member on the Wilmington Police Department's SWAT Team. What she didn't predict was that she would run into trouble her first day on the job, in the form of a deadly, mouthwatering man named Adam McPhee. Who is also not human, but more like a wolf walking around in human skin. He's determined to figure out exactly what Jenna is, which unbeknownst to him, could very well put her life in danger. He's also determined to have her all to himself.
As if that wasn't enough for Jenna to deal with, bad news blows into town. A group of extremist Shifters who think humans are cattle and factions of Others worldwide should stay within their own species - never to intermingle. Chaos ensues. Jenna has to find a way to shut them down, but in the process of trying to do that, discovers things about herself that even she never thought was possible.

Who said the wolf was what you had to worry about?
Welcome to the real world.


Jenna O’Connor is a hybrid, half werewolf and half demon, something unique in this world, and if she is ever found out, she will be killed instantly. At least, that is what her demon mother and her werewolf uncle have told her her whole life. And so Jenna was raised in secret, not going to school like other children, never having a friend. But she is determined to be a cop, like her other uncle, and she does manage to go through police academy and become a cop in her own tiny village. But now she has been appointed a member of the SWAT team, her dream come true. No one knows she is not human, but one of her team members is not human either, and he does notice something different about her. As does the sort of bounty hunter they encounter on their very first mission. He is intrigued when Jenna does not act submissive towards him, as she should have done. So when he finds out she is a werewolf, and a lone one at that, he is determined to have her brought in his pack where he can keep her “safe” and under lock and key.

Her new team member is a demon himself, and he is not going to hand Jenna over to Adam without her getting to know them both. He is attracted to her as well. Jenna has not only been raised protected and sheltered, she also knows next to nothing about werewolves, demons or the Others like vampires. So she is ignorant and doesn’t know how to interact with them, what it means being a pack member.
Adam knows he has to tread slowly and carefully with Jenna, or else she will run fast and far and his wolf has determined she is his mate and wants her.


I don’t know about this book, it could have been my mood while reading this book. But I was told repeatedly, if you like Shelley Laurenston (which I do!) you will like this one too. And I completely disagree. They are nothing alike other than they both write about shifters.

At first I thought I would like Jenna, she was a capable female, a member of the SWAT team, and that is not an easy job to get. But she is ignorant, and falls for the very first werewolf she meets. She doesn’t mind that her brand new co-worker Kent comes on to her very heavy handed and rubs himself against her and stuff, and that while she is a virgin as well. She enjoys it, until she finds out he is manipulating the pool balls to win their bet, and she knows instantly he is a demon because of that, and tries to run from the bar.
Right in Adam’s arms, the werewolf bounty hunter, who has tracked her down thanks to her demon collegue.

So, after running away from then, she later agrees to meet with them and talk, and have them explain things, when all she wants is to be left alone. But Jenna is determined to learn more about her heritage and her father, and ignores her families’ warnings that hybrids are killed on sight. Which is not true anymore, as her uncle could have told her many years ago.

Adam invites her to meet his sister and another pack member, his beta, and to out to a Shifter club with him that night, and Jenna accepts. Well, it is more an excuse for an orgy, and everyone is grabbing at her, and everyone else, and she is totally okay with that. And of course they heavy attraction she has to Adam, who almost has sex with her in the hallway of the club. Where she is saved by the telephone as her boss calls her in for an emergency hostage situation.

Of course Jenna and Kent save the day when they find out that the bad guys are Shifters, the human SWAT members won’t stand a chance against their strength and speed. And so they have a mystery to solve.
Adam takes Jenna to his Pack, where she meets the Pack Master, who is, surprise, her missing uncle Owen. He is sort of the Alpha of all the American Alpha’s and he really likes Adam. And o, another surprise, there is Logan as well, who is Jenna’s half brother and a full werewolf. Jenna accepts it all without many questions and is at once protective of her little brother.

To find out more about the rogue Shifters, Kent takes her with him to visit Gage who is a dangerous tiger shifter. As Kent drives like a lunatic, Jenna shifts into her wolf when they are at their destination to teach him a little lesson, but then of course has no clothes anymore. Gage provides her with some of his sisters’ clothes, and when she accuses him of dressing her like a hooker, he is if course mightily offended on his sisters behalf.

Okay, lots more things happen, there is apparently a powerful wolf pack in Germany with a famous Alpha, who is now in trouble. So a trip to Germany is in order, for Jenna, Kent, uncle Owen, brother Logan and suitor Adam, and Gage and his brother Alec who is a black ring fighter. Adam needs to mate with Jenna, but Jenna needs more time. She gets pressured into accepting Adam as her mate, or else he will loose control to his wolf and will have to be put down. Jenna is 24, Adam is 60, Shifters live for thousands of years and mate for life, and usually find their mate when they are a few hundred years old. And expecting all this from Jenna, who knows next to nothing about being in a Pack and what it entails, is completely unfair.

All of the Others are completely over sexed, it is like it is all they want to do all day long. Waiting staff in clubs are almost naked, and sex is on the menu in public or in private. Nope, not my kind of shifter world at all.

I really wanted to like this book and its characters, and I did for a bit, but there were just too many things I really did not like or enjoy. I wanted Jenna to be a good kick ass heroine, like Shelly Laurenston writes them, and she has a few of those moments, but she just doesn’t cut it. In comparison she is a weakling and she also can’t stand up to Adam when he touches her or kisses her or whatever. Yes, he tries his best, but he is also pushing her way too fast. And her Uncle is completely fine with that as Adam is a great Alpha and a good man.

5 stars.





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© 2014 Reviews by Aurian