Reviewed by Carissa
TITLE: Shifting Gears
AUTHOR: Petra Lynn
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 98 pages
BLURB:
One rainy night, bike-shop owner Kenton Palmer finds an injured dog on the road and takes him to the nearest vet clinic, only to discover he’s actually a wolf. Undeterred, he wants to nurse the injured animal following a necessary surgery. The handsome Dr. Will Barclay’s interest and his own brand of animal attraction overwhelm Kenton, who’s been doubting himself after a failed romance.
Gray Fowler is a wolf-shifter and pack alpha. After Kenton rescues him and takes him home to heal, he’s forced to remain in wolf form. But that doesn’t prevent him from falling hard for Kenton. It begins as jealousy, but Gray soon discovers Will, Kenton’s new admirer, is caught up in something sinister. However, he’s forced to wait until he’s healthy before he can shift and enter Kenton’s life as a man. Then Gray must discover how Will’s shady activities are linked to the men who ran him down and expose the scheme before Kenton gets too involved with Will.
REVIEW:
When Kenton Palmer rescues an injured wolf off the the road he never expected his life to change so drastically. Ever since his last lover walked out on him, his life has been rather boring. Now he’s got a wolf to take care of, and a veterinarian sniffing after him. And while it is practically love at first sight with Rain, the injured wolf, he is less sure about Dr. Will Barclay. Still, it has been a long time since he has anyone interested in him, so why not give it chance?
Little does he know that Rain is actually Gray Fowler, a wolf shifter, or that Dr. Barclay is up to some rather shady dealings in his vet surgery. It might just be up to Gray to protect the man who saved him on that rain-soaked road…even if he has no idea exactly what he is protecting Kenton from.
This was a rather interesting twist on the whole ‘rescue an injured shifter’ trope. I quite liked the idea that it is not Gray that Kenton originally falls for, even if Will was a bit of a tosser. And since Gray is stuck in wolf form for a good half of this book, it made for an nice way to move the story along without Kenton spending half the book having one-sided conversations with a wolf.
I was, however, more than a little turned off by sex in this book. I could have done without all the graphic descriptions of Will and Kenton getting it on, but I get why it was there. Still, Will was an asshole and I would have rather Gray bite the douche than having to sit thru a rather uncomfortable sex scene. But that is nothing compared to my discomfort at reading the, at the very least, dubiously consensual sex between Kenton and Gray. Kenton is under the impression that it is Will he is having sex with. He gave consent to Will not Gray. I was highly uncomfortable with the idea that just because Gray was his ‘true love’ it was ok to trick Kenton into having sex with him. And that Kenton later shrugged it off, after finding out, and said it was ok because he got off, didn’t help matters at all. I can handle dubious consent in certain situations, but the way it was treated here, as if it was no big deal for Gray to practically rape Kenton just because they would eventually become lovers, really turned me off.
Also, I have some serious doubts about the whole Will subplot. Unless the canine population has skyrocketed in this town, I have some serious doubts about whether Will would be able to collect the number of dogs he has apparently collected. At least without anyone twigging to what he is doing. Did none of the other vet clinics get a little suspicious that this guy is basically using their clinics as a supermarket? Or did the police not get notified that animals are vanishing at a rapid pace from people’s homes? And that is not even covering my confusion as to what a research lab would do with so many different dogs. Surely if you wanted to have any coherent data you would want to have test subjects that didn’t range over so many sizes and breeds.
Between the dubious consent, Gray’s creepy stalking of Kenton, and the weird dog-thief plot, I could not get into this story at all. And while I liked the idea of the story, in execution it just fell apart. I have far too many issues with this book to give it any real recommendation.
RATING: 
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