I received an advanced copy of Patricia Rosemoor’s Animal Instincts from the publisher, Tule Publishing, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, Tule Publishing, for taking the chance on a new blog.

This book is a paranormal romance centred around a young woman, Skye Cross, who has a psychic connection with animals and routinely works in connection with the police force’s Animal Crimes Unit and Animal Care and Control to work towards shutting down the rampant animal fighting ring in the city of Chicago. While at a raid, Skye runs into her twin brother, Shade Cross, a homicide detective with CPD, who gives her a good luck charm after admonishing her for her presence at the bust. Skye disregards her twin’s commands and goes about doing what she does best, helping animals. Although, her disobedience soon lands her a nice hot pot of trouble from which a mysterious man, whom we later learn is Luc Laverre, rescues her just in the nick of time. Not long after our main characters are introduced, Shade is killed protecting a woman during his investigation who turns out to be Luc’s mother and he turns into a ghost with short-term memory loss and a few weird rules regarding his ghostly activities.

Teaming up to solve Shade’s murder and put an end to the animal fighting ring, Skye and Luc alternate between butting heads and heavy flirting. Both of which were usually on account of Luc’s half-breed status of one of the Kindred and his self-imposed family duty to his mobster-esque father and his den of multitudinous iniquities, a casino boat called The Arc. As they search for the culprit(s), the duo face off against dirty members of law enforcement and Kindred that aren’t fond of half-breeds.

Y’all. I’m just going to say it. I struggled the whole way through Animal Instincts. I wanted to fall in love with it from the second I read the synopsis on NetGalley, what animal lover wouldn’t? But I couldn’t. I loved the premise of the story, a young woman trying to help animals and put an end to a animal fighting ring, but I just couldn’t lose myself in the story. The writing seemed a bit stilted to me and the lead characters were all over the place. It took me taking short moments out of my day to read Animal Instincts, one lonely page at a time. I had to skip over the overly graphic descriptions of the animal fights because I can’t even sit through one of those Humane Society commercials (you know the ones) on television. The characters varied from partially vivid to flat and lifeless. Skye and Luc were, of course, the most developed, but most of the other characters were a bit empty. The world-building that was put into this was underdeveloped and had definite holes that need plugging. To be quite honest, I’m still not entirely sure what the Kindred are except shifters who’ve given up their souls for more power. I was actually left in the dark on several things that happened in Animal Instincts and y’all have no idea how much it bothered me. I ranted for twenty whole minutes on New Year’s Eve after finishing it.

All in all, I’m giving this a 2 out of 5 stars. The story has good bones hidden underneath the one-dimensional characters and substandard world-building and I’d love to see it flourish one day. But for right this moment, it fell short and that saddens me. ( )

Animal Instincts by Patricia Rosemoor is an interesting take on the shifter genre. There was alot about the magic of the place that wasn't explained. I would have liked to have a better handle on that. Also the instantly falling in love was a bit much. For once I'd like to see the romance bloom in a more natural manner rather than the instant attraction that seems to be common. I also couldn't quite understand what the main heroine was supposed to be, I suppose this will be part of the series and will be explained a later date. ( )

I couldn't get into this book. I like urban fantasy, I like paranormal romance, I like mystery, sometimes I even like horror. This was a mish-mash of all of those and just didn't work for me. I wasn't expecting anything so dark as this was and that was part of it, but it also just wasn't holding my attention. I found the shift from first person to third person over and over again distracting. I can't speak to the second half of the book, as by that time I was lightly skimming the pages, so maybe it all came together, but by then I was already done. ( )

Animal Instincts took a different and darker approach to shapeshifters that was a nice break from typical shapeshifter books I have read. Unfortunately the book was hard to follow at times due to the lack of explanation. It took me a while to understand what it meant to be Kindred and I don't completely understand what Skye and Shade were. I also felt there was a lot lacking between Luc and Skye. Apart from the annoying "What are you?" question that came up a lot, I feel that Luc and Skye did not grow and were rushed at the end to hurry up and end up together. Overall I feel like this book has a lot of potential but was poorly executed. ( )

Animal Instincts by Patricia Rosemoor is a story about Luc Lazare & Skye Cross, they are both a little more than human but still working towards embracing their other side. Where Luc's legacy is to corrupt souls, Skye's is to protect it on all costs. This tale has good amount of suspense, passion, family love but it somehow falls short. I generally do not take breaks when I like something that I'm reading but unfortunately I did put this book down several times. The beginning is slow but it picks up pace after a while. ( )