Title: Hoofbeats
Series: N/A
Author: AJ Marcus and Nicole Godfrey
Genre: Paranormal/Shape shifters
Length: 200 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (12 Feb 2016)
Heat Level: Moderate
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥3.5 Hearts
Blurb: After a run of bad luck, gifted horse trainer Cole Frasier thinks he’s lost his touch. When he’s offered three times his normal rate to gentle a stallion, he needs the money badly enough he jumps at the opportunity, even if his boss is of questionable morality.
Once he meets Midnight Blood, he knows there’s something special about the horse, but he doesn’t know how special until he begins sharing dreams with the magnificent steed.
Derek Dancing Hawk is a horse shifter trapped in his horse form due to guilt over losing the wild herd he was guarding. When he meets Cole, as Midnight Blood, he wants to find a way to be human again. During a fight between Cole and the ranch foreman, he manages to shift and save Cole, but his transformation from horse to human is captured on camera. This not only gives Cole’s boss blackmail material, but also creates the need to warn the horse shifter council of the threat to their anonymity.
The existence of shifters is a closely guarded secret, one they will go to great lengths to keep.
ISBN: 978-1-63476-812-2
Product Link: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=7411
Reviewer: Prime
Review: This is an interesting twist on the shape-shifter/paranormal genre of erotic romance. While it isn’t my favourite, shape shifters being one of my favourite themes, the story is thoroughly enjoyable and fun.
The story starts with horse whisperer/horse trainer Cole Friaser desperate for a job and money. He fears he’s lost his touch with horses after a couple of major accidents/failures with his charges in the past year. He’s desperate for any job he can take, which leads him to the rather shady owner of a ranch, Lopez. The man and his foremen are evil – they abuse their animals.
However, there is one particularly nasty horse, Midnight Blood, which cannot be tamed. This is where Cole comes in – despite immediately knowing that he couldn’t agree with his boss’s methods at all, Cole has no choice but to take the job to tame the stallion which is owned by the boss’s wife, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth is a bit of an interesting character and I would have liked to know more about the interesting woman who may or may not be an ally for Cole and Derek.
Derek is Derek Dancing Hawk. He was once the guardian (alpha) shifter for his heard of horses until they were massacred. He exiled himself to live his life in horse form, which leads him to being Midnight Blood and meeting Cole.
At first Derek is resistant of his attraction to Cole because Cole is human – something I would have liked to know more about beyond the brief mention of Derek’s grandmother and her human mate.
When our villains blackmail Cole and Derek they are desperate to do whatever it takes to stay together, but there are bits and pieces through this specific part of the story where I just don’t think there was enough details to truly get to the emotion and desperation of the two men.
My biggest issue with this book is that I feel sometimes we are left wondering the significance of some details. Or in other cases some the details are just not there and I am left wondering what is left there because reading between the lines wasn’t exactly easy all the entire time.
This book will be enjoyable to anyone who enjoys shape shifters.
* I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review through http://mmgoodbookreviews.wordpress.com *