Shift Happens by Storm Grant

[reviews_and_ramblings]

This is a novel that masterly mixes together adventure thriller, romance but above all comedy: it’s not often that, while reading about drugs dealer and dangerous situations you find yourself laughing for some of the gags Adrian comes out with.

An unwilling hero, Adrian is a young anthropologist who decides to change his life once he sees his young neighbour dying in front of his eyes. Actually a two weeks mission in the Amazonian forest is not so much a big change, but it’s for sure different from working as a white collar in a civilized Canadian city. Adrian is not exactly your hero type, on the contrary he is more on the cute twink side, like he proves already in the airplane taking him in South America having sex with a handsome, but complete stranger, Tom.

From this starting you could think sex will be on the front stage of the story and instead this is actually the only real sex scene you will find (aside for the wet dream both Adrian and Tom will share); almost immediately after that, Tom got “turned” into a jaguar and he will spend most of the novel in that form (and no, there is no kinky sex in shifted form): actually more than a romance the novel is a solo man adventure with big cat along; Tom will become Adrian guardian angel, he will protect and hunt for his past lover, but Tom will be a feline, with the behaviour of a feline, so sometime temperamental, sometime cuddling, sometime fierce.

There are two parallel stories entangling together: Tom is an agent for a special agency fighting drugs dealer, Adrian is going in Amazonian to study ancient pictographs, both of them will crash with the same villain but more or less they will spend most of the novel alone in the forest searching for an ancient temple. In the path they will meet funny characters, helping them or viceversa.

As I said, even if scared, hungry and totally helpless in the Amazonian forest, Adrian will never loose his sense of humor and after the initial reticence, he will adapt to the oddity of having a lap-cat which is bigger than him (and that is coming from someone who thought to not like cats in general). Of course being Tom in feline form, he has no “rational” thoughts, and so all the novel turns around Adrian.

This novel surprised me for the comedy touch, something that was totally unexpected and that I’m not used to find nor in paranormal or thriller romance. If comedy lovers skipped this story for the same wrong-belief, I recommend to reconsider it.

http://www.amberquill.com/AmberAllure/ShiftHappens.html

Amazon: Shift Happens
Amazon Kindle: Shift Happens
Paperback: 242 pages
Publisher: Amber Quill Press, LLC (December 21, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1611249864
ISBN-13: 978-1611249866

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