This is one of those on the surface reads where you expect absolutely nothing from the book and as such enjoy it despite its absolute simplicity. I knew from the get go I was in for a bit of silliness and that’s exactly what I got. Maybe a little bit ridiculous, but enjoyable just the same solid 3.5 stars.Carson is a lamb shifter, and a weaker one at that. The other rams won’t let him help guard the town from marauding wolves and they pick on him readily and often. In fact his half brother is one of the worst offenders. Instead he’s left to help the ewes with the little ones. A task Carson doesn’t mind, and in fact enjoys, but one that opens him up to even more ridicule. One night on his way home he’s accosted by his brother and a pack of his friends.Brody is the younger brother of his packs alpha. Sent on a reconnaissance mission to discover if the lamb shifters really are trying to move out of their hidden little town and into the big city Brody is surprised to find his protective instincts raised when he stumbles onto a young lamb shifter being nearly raped by his own kind. It doesn’t take him long to discover that Carson is his mate. Throwing out all of the things he’d been taught about the other shifters being prey Brody takes Carson away with him and starts looking for a way for them to be together.So I was warned to expect a fair bit of absurdity and things like baa-ing during sex, and yeah that’s all in here, but not as heavily as I feared. Generally this is a cute little story about two natural adversaries looking to find a way to be together despite class prejudices, even if those prejudices are really silly mindless animal ideas. Carson is a sweetheart and I loved watching him fight his instincts to be strong and stand up for himself and Brody even when he knew he couldn’t win. I liked Brody well enough though I would have liked a little more backbone from him. For all that he was the lamb shifter I often felt like Carson was the stronger of the two.My biggest problem with the books probably was the ingrained idea that the animal side of these shifters is all so strong that they don’t reason a difference between a human animal shifter and their non-shifter counterpart. I find the idea of a wolf shifter eating another shifter, especially in their human form, to be a little repulsive. Brody even makes the point that there wasn’t a need for it anymore with, you know, grocery stores and all. I guess I can understand past history and the hunting of other shifters for food back in medieval times, but a modern mind and understanding makes it all seem a little silly. Makes for interesting tension, but the actual practicality of the idea is a little far-fetched. Besides one would think the full animal counterparts would be much easier to catch anyway. They don’t have the reasoning human mind to think their way out of a tight spot.This is an insta-love/bonding book, which doesn’t bother me in shifter books very much because I can buy into the animal instincts thing. The forced splitting of their bond was an interesting plot twist as well and made me really wish Brody had more of a backbone. I did find the flip flopping of our bad guys opinions a little distracting throughout as everytime I felt like I’d identified who was going to be the issue they’d get over it and it’d move on to someone else. First it was Carson’s brother, then Brody’s brother, then Brody’s dad, then Brody’s brother is helping him escape at the behest of his dad, then it’s Brody’s ex, the beta he beat, and Carson’s brother working in cahoots…bit shifty if you ask me. Still I just shrugged and moved on. Chalked it all up to, it’s a silly book, but it’s cute and I kinda like it. The writing is very elementary and covers the bones of the story with minimal embellishments or flavor. It gives just enough to keep you interested but doesn’t have the richness of other authors in the genre. I enjoyed what I was reading, but I didn’t find myself absolutely hooked into having to get the next book immediately the way I normally am with a good shifter series. I’ll probably read more of the series as some point because I did like it, but I won’t be breaking any speed records to get there. typical Scarlet Hyacinth serial romance. nothing fantastic, nothing so bad it can't be finished. what is typical Scarlet Hyacinth? imagine a shorter harlequin romance but with no t&a (see, i was going to write no surprise pregnancies, but... yeah.). out of sheer laziness, i will be using this as my template for all serials by UNLESS motivated otherwise by markedly good/bad writing:Scarlet Hyacinthjoyee flynnsunny daylynn hagenstormy glenncarol lynnegabrielle evansi'd apologize, but i'm not sorry.
What do You think about The Lamb Who Cried Wolf (2011)?
A good start to the series, with an assesses ending.
—azaman
