TBR Pile Review: Dance with the Devil by Angela Dennis

 

Born to be enemies. Destined to be lovers.

After killing one of her father’s enforcers, half-blood lion shifter Jillian Winters ran for her life, landing in an upscale bar halfway across the country. Her boss, Carrick—a pure-blood shifter—has no idea his barmaid is a fugitive.

When her father’s recklessness puts the Pride at risk, Jillian must return home and assume his place as Alpha. But not before she indulges in a taste of the attraction that’s been building for years between her and Carrick.

Carrick Granger has had a soft spot for Jillian from the moment she stepped into his bar, soaking wet and afraid of her own shadow. He knows she has secrets. So does he. He’s also the outcast son of an Alpha—and now that his father is dead, he, too, has been summoned home.

Thinking they’ll never see each other again, the simmering heat between them ignites like a match to gunpowder. But then the bullets start flying, forcing them to choose—duty to their Prides, or the one person they can’t live without.

This book was one of those rare middle of the road ratings books for me. I really wanted to rate it higher than a 3.5, but the abrupt beginning and the back and forth POV in the middle of the chapters really threw me for a loop. I love dual POV books, but this one just grated on me a little bit by changing in the middle of the chapter. Had each chapter been from a single characters perspective and switched back and forth, I would have felt differently about this story. I spent several seconds trying to figure out who the hell was talking at some points in the book. I also feel like we weren’t given enough information going into the story to really forge a connection with the characters. I’m not a huge fan of detailed histories of all the characters, but I felt like there was something missing at the beginning.

That part aside, the story itself has great potential. The characters are engaging and the story is unique enough that you feel like it’s a new take on shifter romance. The plot was delivered well, but the aforementioned issues above really took away from the story in my opinion. A tough female shifter was a good touch to the world of rather pussy cats inside of hell cat females. I liked this book, but I just couldn’t love it as much as a I wanted to.