Review: Shifting Cargo by Tina Blenke

Title: Shifting Cargo (Shifting Paradigm: Book Three)

Author: Tina Blenke

Pages/Word Count: 75 Pages

At a Glance: This story is seventy-nine pages of sweetness and love, or is it? Blenke is an intelligent author, and it shows in her writing.

Reviewed By: Kathie

Blurb: Ramey’s world is shattered when his brother dies suddenly. He tries to go through the motions, day by agonizing day, doing the best that he can at his job, but it’s not enough. Months of depression escalates into alcohol use and drug abuse to numb the pain. For the past year, he’s been dreading meeting with his lawyer and accepting his brother’s death. The pain becomes too much to bear and Ramey is caught with cocaine at work and fired immediately.

When he hits rock bottom, he realizes that he’s disrespecting his brother’s memory and checks himself into rehab with the help of an unlikely friend.

Londyn’s life is perfect living as a wolf Shifter in the Pack Lands. He’s been working in the family business and happy living in his cabin in the woods. Londyn has high expectations for the perfect mate to make his life complete.

Can Ramey accept his destiny as a Shifter’s mate? And is his love for the wolf Shifter worth leaving behind the demons and the only world he’s ever known?

Review: The love story of Ramey and Londyn can be read as a standalone , but why do that when you can read all three books and immerse yourself in the Shifting Paradigm World that Tina Blenke has created? I think this story really resonates with what is going on in the news right now. Can we live together and love each other, no matter what our religion, skin color, or, in this case, if you’re a wolf shifter?

The essence of the story is Londyn and Ramey meeting, trusting, and falling in love. The story is told in flashbacks, very much needed to fill out the characters and setting. With the flashbacks I was able to understand Ramey’s actions and why he was so troubled.

Another great facet of this story, and all of Tina Blenke’s stories, is the sexual chemistry she writes for her characters. Can you say Hot! Hot! Hot!? I would have to say her scenes are some of the best I have read.

This story is seventy-nine pages of sweetness and love, or is it? Blenke is an intelligent author, and it shows in her writing. Read the story one time, and yes, it’s the story of a man with a positive attitude, Londyn, hitting rock bottom; and of Ramey recovering from drug addiction. Now, read the book a second time, and it’s a story about race and family dynamics, sprinkled with little nuggets of insight.

“Loving Londyn was perfect. It was living.”

There are many more nuggets like this, if you take a moment while you are reading to find them. I promise…

Shifting Paradigm is one of my favorite series, and I hope it continues. My only complaint about Shifting Cargo is I wish it would have been longer. Then maybe I would have learned more about Ramey’s stay in rehab, or maybe more about Londyn and his family. I am just more of a novel kind of reader, I guess; novellas are just too short.