Reviewed by Sammy
TITLE: Prickly Business
SERIES: Portland Pack Chronicles
AUTHOR: Piper Vaughn & Kenzie Cade
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
LENGTH: 287 pages
RELEASE DATE: May 19, 2020 (re-issued)
BLURB:
Some people might call Avery Babineaux a prick. He’s a hedgehog shifter from an old-money Louisiana family with a penchant for expensive shoes and a reputation for being a judgmental snob. His attitude is why he and his fated mate are estranged. Not that Avery cares. He doesn’t want to be mated to some blue-collar werewolf anyway. Or so he keeps telling himself.
No werewolf likes to be looked down upon, least of all Dylan Green. He doesn’t need a mate, especially not some snotty hedgehog who sneers at his custom motorcycle shop and calls him a grease monkey. But when Avery gets into trouble with a shady loan shark, Dylan can’t stand by and let him be hurt—whether he wants the brat or not.
Yet once Dylan steps into Avery’s world, he realizes there’s more to Avery than his prickly exterior, and that unexpected vulnerability calls to Dylan’s protective instincts. The sassy little hedgehog needs a keeper, and despite their horrible first impressions, Dylan starts to believe he might be the wolf for the job.
REVIEW:
When a fabulous writer teams up with another, one can often expect a creatively inventive novel to happen and such is the case with the writing duo of Piper Vaughn and Kenzie Cade and their story, Prickly Business. Reissued a little while ago, I finally have the opportunity to review this clever paranormal tale. Pairing a wolf shifter and a hedgehog has got to be the most unique idea I have ever read and honestly I could not have loved Avery more especially when it is described how he shifts and rolls into a little ball to protect and comfort himself. Oh my golly I want one and if this enemies to lovers story is anything to go by so does Dylan Green’s inner wolf.
Avery begins as a spoiled, rich southern belle/beaux who is used to daddy and mommy bailing him out and providing for everything including his upkeep to his designer clothes and personal yoga instructor—no sweaty class full of strangers for him, thank you very much. But when Avery bets on wolf races (an underground event run by a smarmy shyster named Vic) and gets in way over his head in debt, Vic sends his muscle men/wolves to not so gently remind Avery to pay up or else. It’s here that Dylan, who met Avery two years before when both of them recognized in the other their destined mate, intervenes in Avery’s life again.
Their first meeting didn’t go so well with Dylan mocking Avery’s size and inner hedgehog and Avery responding with the idea that he would never mate a common “grease monkey”. Conveniently overlooking the fact that Dylan actually owns his own mechanic shop, a fast growing and successful business, Avery dismisses the man. They both leave the other in a huff declaring that they will never mate only to have two years pass by all the while feeling actual longing and pain growing every time they spot one another. For Avery it’s a matter of pride goeth before a fall but for Dylan it’s the fact that his own parent’s marriage is one of strife and seeming unhappiness. His father, a retired cop, has nothing but contempt for his son, Dylan, and orders his wife around, forcing her to stay home and serve him. Hence Dylan vows he will resist his mate and never marry. Then Avery gets into trouble and all bets are off.
As Avery must turn elsewhere for help paying off his massive debt to Vic after being disowned by his parents, Dylan steps in and the two begin a tenuous dance of delayed courtship that often shines light on areas where they distrust or make false assumptions about each other. It also exposes a deep crime network at work in the Portland area that Avery stumbles across when helping an elderly wolf try and discover the whereabouts of his missing daughter. Suddenly both men are in danger and frantic to keep each other safe.
This story really flew off the page for me. First I loved the idea of a hedgehog shifter—one that I am sure I had never read about before. Secondly, I liked that while the two men fought their bond, they knew the consequences and once they decided to try and slowly court each other their bond grew slowly. There was no sudden jumping into bed or unbridled intimacy (don’t get me wrong—they are definitely intimate) but instead this builds at a good pace and integrates with the secondary mystery quite well. I admire these author’s ability to bring both threads in this novel to a finish and enmesh them so tightly together making this a fast-paced, nail-biting novel overall.
I think my only quibble with the story is that I can’t recall ever really understanding why Dylan’s dad hated him so much. It is a vicious, mean type of disdain his father has and we never see it build instead it’s just there-hot and full on from the get go. If the reason was covered in the story I must have missed it for I know it really bothered me to not get a handle on their backstory as father and son and how this resentment built to such a fever-pitch. Other than that omission I really can honestly say I thoroughly enjoyed this story.
Prickly Business does have another book in the series which was also republished. I am hoping to get my hands on that book as well for I’d love to see if the plans Avery has for his and Dylan’s future at the end of this novel come to fruition. Until then for those who enjoy a good paranormal mystery check this one out.
RATING: 
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