Author: Cheyenne Meadows
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Length: 192 Pages
Category: Paranormal Romance, Shifters
At a Glance: The sexy times are hot, the men are macho with a soft, gooey inside, and the story entertaining—not a bad combination.
Reviewed By: Carrie
Blurb: Polar bear shifter Graham Tundra can’t believe his bad luck. Not only is he traded to another baseball team midseason, but he’s also teamed up with Trigger Mallow: widely considered the best player in the game—but with the worst attitude.
Trigger is on the fence about Graham. As a grizzly bear shifter, he’s relieved to have another ursine on the team, even if they are different species. The problem is Trigger is in the middle of his natural mating season, and Graham looks too damn good to pass up.
What begins as friends with benefits shows potential to grow into a deeper connection. If only they can put aside their differences, learn to trust, listen to their feelings, and realize it’s more than just a bear thing.
Review: Banner Peterson, a hyena shifter, is a genius. As manager of the Preston Predators, it is his job to know what his players need, and pairing Trigger Mallow and Graham Tundra as team partners seems like a win/win for him. Banner is just one of the secondary characters in this book who provides humor and understanding to a shifter world that Cheyenne Meadows is so good at writing. Bears, ursine, I have read other shifter books but never one centered around a baseball team, and I have to say the author makes it work.
The Predators are made up of several shifter breeds, and this installment in the series centers on the catcher, Trigger, and the team’s new pitcher, Graham. Trigger is a grizzly and Graham is a polar bear. These two men are so very different and far apart, not just in bear species but personality as well.
Trigger Mallow is known as the biggest, baddest, surliest bastard in the league. All titles he is very proud of and has no intention of losing, and he’s in the middle of mating season when his bear is out for booty and lots of it. I loved Trigger; he was just so misunderstood. It takes a good writer to create a character that everyone in the story dislikes but the reader loves, and Cheyenne has done just that. There are a lot of things in Trigger’s life that have made him what he is, and the author takes her time to create the backstory on these men so they become dimensional characters who are real.
Graham Tundra had a bad experience when he came out to his last team. His confidence took a real hit, and he got knocked down in the league. He’s back now and determined to not let anyone know he is gay and have the same thing happen twice in a row. Trust is not high on his list. Being paired with a man who says he can’t stand him is daunting, especially when that man is another bear, in mating season and prickly as a cactus.
This is a different sort of shifter romance. Baseball factors heavily in this book, as most of it plays out on the diamond or in hotels on road trips. The other players are a motley bunch, and watching them come together as a team was fun. This is not a particularly heavy story, the angst is treated lightly and the way the two bears dance around each other is entertaining. I do wish that the romance was played out more and the baseball toned down. Sometimes it felt a little distancing, like we were being told the story not experiencing it with them, and the language could have been more sophisticated. I never read book one and found I didn’t need to. Loaded for Bear stands on its own. The sexy times are hot, the men are macho with a soft, gooey inside, and the story entertaining—not a bad combination. I recommend this book.
You can buy Loaded for Bear here:
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