'How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf' Naked Werewolf #1 by Molly HARPER

From the BLURB:

Northern Exposure

Even in Grundy, Alaska, it’s unusual to find a naked guy with a bear trap clamped to his ankle on your porch. But when said guy turns into a wolf, recent southern transplant Mo Wenstein has no difficulty identifying the problem. Her surly neighbor Cooper Graham—who has been openly critical of Mo’s ability to adapt to life in Alaska—has trouble of his own. Werewolf trouble.

For Cooper, an Alpha in self-imposed exile from his dysfunctional pack, it’s love at first sniff when it comes to Mo. But Cooper has an even more pressing concern on his mind. Several people around Grundy have been the victims of wolf attacks, and since Cooper has no memory of what he gets up to while in werewolf form, he’s worried that he might be the violent canine in question.

If a wolf cries wolf, it makes sense to listen, yet Mo is convinced that Cooper is not the culprit. Except if he’s not responsible, then who is? And when a werewolf falls head over haunches in love with you, what are you supposed to do anyway? The rules of dating just got a whole lot more complicated. . . .

Mo has had enough. She’s had enough of wheat germ, hemp, protest signs, and communal housing. Her mother and father may still be free-love hippies, but she has long since grown out of their smothering parenting. Mo needs boundaries, so she moves to Alaska. In the dead of night she packs up her house and leaves Mississippi and her parents behind.

Not only is the remote town of Grundy thousands of miles away from her folks, but Mo has plenty of rough and rugged suitors to choose from in this town that has a severe female-shortage. But Mo really just wants to figure out who she is away from her overpowering parents before she embarks on a new relationship . . . so it’s a good thing that the only man in town who revs Mo’s engine is Cooper Graham – the grumpiest, surliest, most unpleasant man she has ever come across.

Mo settles into her new town and excels in her role as resident fry-cook at the local diner. All the while Cooper sets her nerves on edge . . . he’s so anti-social and awful, it’s just a shame he’s also a babe.

But as events unfold, Mo uncovers a supernatural explanation for Cooper’s prickly personality ... heck, you’d be grumpy too if you were a self-exiled Alpha werewolf who was sexually frustrated by his new-found mate.

‘How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf’ is the first book in Molly Harper’s brand-spankin new ‘Naked Werewolf’ paranormal romance series.

Molly Harper is in her element in the paranormal romance genre. Anyone who has read (and loved) ‘Jane Jameson’ knows what to expect from this new series – a combination of sexy, supernatural silliness.

It’s pretty hard to talk about ‘How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf’ without referring back to ‘Jane Jameson’. Obviously, Jane Jameson put Molly Harper on the paranormal map. She tapped into a unique new genre with that comedic urban fantasy, and ‘Naked Werewolf’ owes a lot to the success of ‘Jane’. But while these two series share a genre, Molly Harper offers up a totally new take on her winning formula.

Mo is our leading lady in this new series, and it’s no surprise that she’s a laugh riot. Molly Harper is the queen of writing wittily observant femme fatales, and Mo takes the cake. Harper has given her the most unique and outrageous childhood – complete with hippie parents and commune-living. There are a lot of Freudian personality quirks to Mo that are being subtly explored by Harper, always with tongue-in-cheek humour.

I would say that, on the whole, Jane Jameson was more constantly-hilarious and generally quicker with the quips than Mo. Regardless, I loved her, especially when her relationship with Cooper got steamier. . .

Harper pokes fun at a lot of Alpha male stereotypes through the character of Cooper Graham. I love that Mo called him out on his rugged surliness, even after she learns that it’s all down to his werewolf nature . . . it made for many a funny repartee.

“Men always think they should be in charge of outdoor cooking.” I took the hot-dog package from him and skewered a few. “But the Y chromosome has been programmed with the ‘the blacker my food is, the more manly I am’ gene. I like my processed meats to be somewhere in the unnatural-nitrate-red range. Ergo I will handle the cooking, thank you.”

Cooper was quiet for a long moment.

“You’re trying to come up with some sort of ‘processed meats’ double entendre, aren’t you?” I accused him as I held the sticks over the fire.

“Yeah, you didn’t leave me a lot to work with,” he grumbled.

‘Jane Jameson’ was all about the vampires, but ‘Naked Werewolf’ shifts the focus onto a whole new crop of supernatural beings. But that’s not the only difference. ‘Jane’ definitely had a family focus as Jane and her family coped with her new vampirism – her mother, father, ghostly grandmother and awful sister all played pivotal roles throughout the series. ‘Naked Werewolf’ is more about the absence of family – Mo flees Mississippi to get away from her over-bearing parents, and Cooper has his own dark reasons for abandoning his pack to live life as a lone wolf. Whereas ‘Jane’ was all about learning to love your family (quirks and all) ‘Naked Werewolf’ is about the family we make for ourselves. Mo gathers new friends and makes a place for herself in Grundy, while Cooper finds his family in Mo.

I did have only one small complaint about ‘How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf’, and that was to do with the romance. I don’t think the romantic pacing was quite right. I thought that Mo’s discovery of Cooper’s werewolf was very out-of-the-blue. It seemed like one second she was oblivious, and the next the idea randomly popped into her head that Cooper was the very same werewolf (with blue eyes) that she’d seen lurking around outside her home. It was a very spontaneous and disconnected thought process that led to a rather rushed coupling. For me, it was a little too random, too soon. But that’s my only complaint.

What a shock! – Molly Harper’s new paranormal romance series is spectacular. Anyone who has read ‘Jane Jameson’ should not be surprised that ‘Naked Werewolf’ is another winning mix of hilarious supernatural shenanigans and steamy romance. Even when Harper swaps fangs for fur, she dominates in the paranormal comedy genre.

4.5/5