#BookReview – ‘Bare Instincts’ by Vella Day

Blurb

Burke Devereaux’s life is turned upside down after receiving news of his brother’s death. After years of being gone from Hidden Hills, NC, the guilt-ridden bear shifter returns home for the funeral. 

Tasha Wilder, an overweight, bear shifter librarian, used to lust after the sexy, high school basketball player back in the day. She never acted on those feelings, knowing full well he’d never want someone as plain as her. Burke is now back and she does her best to keep her animalistic urges hidden by keeping her distance—until fate intervenes. Doing her best to offer him only sympathy during an unexpected encounter, her inner beast explodes with unbridled lust and passion. 

Burke tackles his inner demons and finally accepts that Tasha is his mate, but he hadn’t expected her to deny their destiny. What can he do to convince Tasha she’s his one and only?

Review 

In book two in the Hidden Hills Shifters series, Tasha is a bear shifter who’s big boned and a little chubby. She’s a bear, after all. Back in high school, she felt an undeniable attraction to a fellow bear shifter, a boy she’d known all her life, but Burke never found her attractive and made fun of her for being big. He preferred the skinny, wild girls. Fast forward eleven years and they meet again after Burke’s drug addict brother dies. Burke starts to reevaluate his live-free, party-hard ways and finally acknowledges the secret attraction he always felt for Tasha.

Tasha is stubborn, smart, and strong-willed. She’s a normal, shy woman with body issues. I really liked her, but I couldn’t connect with Burke. He pursued Tasha because he couldn’t control his lust, not because he cared about her, at least not at first. Tasha wanted him just as badly, but at least she understood nothing serious would come from it. They had sex constantly and rarely talked. Poor communication led to needless problems.

Book three in the series is set up (Wade and Emmaline) and we get to read a few pages in their POV. Storm and Chey from book one makes a few appearances, and I would’ve liked to read more about them.

The story was told in third person POV. Though there were a few typos, none of them distracted me from the story.

3 Stars

Disclaimer – I downloaded this book from Instafreebie and volunteered to review it. I am not compensated in any way, shape, or form for this honest review. I will not change or alter this review for any reason unless at my discretion.