REVIEW by @GinnyLurcock: How To Flirt With A Naked Werewolf by Molly Harper (@MollyHarperAuth)

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. . . .
 
 

“How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf” is the literary equivalent of movies like “When in Rome”, “Leap Year”, and “27 Dresses”.   While I am slightly ashamed to admit it (a hold-over from never wanting to be seen as “too girlie” by my mainly male circle of friends) sometimes I just want to throw on my comfiest jammies, make myself some hot chocolate with an overlarge dollop of fluff, switch of my brain, and settle in for some estrogen time.
 

OH!  This book is the literary equivalent of fluff.  Sweet, but with no real nutritional value.  Yes, I like that analogy better.  Let’s pretend I went with that one from the start.
 
Mo is hilarious, to the point that there were times that I was weeping with laughter.  Born as the only child of two really out there hippies, she always has some sort of entertaining childhood story to share that’s good for a laugh.  Oh, and some of the phrases that come out of this girls mouth?  Priceless.
 
Cooper is the broody loner who is torn between being a total ass to Mo, and kissing her.  He was kind of generic, the tortured soul who goes from being the angry alpha male to the over protective alpha male.  I honestly think I liked him in wolf form more.  He did have some witty dialogue with Mo though, and there were all those scenes with him nekkid, so I cut him a little slack for his sameness.  
 
 
Speaking of nekkid, this book has ample steamy scenes.  Probably more than was strictly necessary for a book of this length, and way more graphic than I generally find in a book not dubbed “smut”.   If that’s an issue for you, you may want to skip this title.  Those scenes did lead to some rather awesome quotes… like all the ones about the economy box of condoms. 
 
As with any novel where you know there’s a bad guy, I spent most of the book going “ok, which one of you little fuc…. Er… nice folks… is the darn bad guy here?!?” while also desperately hoping that this would not be the one book where the romantic male lead was the bad guy.  It’s to the point where I wonder why I read the genre at all anymore, you would think that the anxiety it causes wouldn’t be worth it, and yet at least once a month I pick up a romantic suspense.
 
So it wouldn’t be one of my Ginny brand reviews if I didn’t point out the negatives…  I am telling myself it’s not because I’m a pessimist, but rather because I like to warn you about the bad things so you’re prepared and can just sit back and enjoy what is otherwise a very good book.
 
My major point of contention?  When trying to figure out what’s up with her brooding neighbor, she notices that her eyes are the same of her giant wolf protector.  Instead of going “my, what an odd coincidence” as you would expect, she goes “oh noes, he must be a werewolf.”  Normal people do not jump to that conclusion.  Hell *I* don’t jump to that conclusion.  So while I am perfectly willing to suspend reality for the possibility of werewolves, making that GIANT leap makes me go “Really?”
 
There was at least one jarring moment where the timeline got a little muddled, and Cooper was a wolf, transformed, and then without transforming back in the space of a paragraph was a wolf again… These always get me in books, and I spend like 30 minutes rereading the section to make sure I didn’t read it wrong.  Hell I’m still not sure I didn’t read it wrong.
 
The book takes place over a year, and while that makes the relationship feel more organic and less whirlwindy, it causes problems of its own.  Such as asking us to believe that while she ran to the other side of the country to get away from her overbearing parents, they suddenly didn’t call for months on end… 
 
All in all, the book earned 3.5 err… snozberries?  out of 5.0 snozberries.
 
I’ve got to come up with a better rating system…
 
Click here to get your copy of How To Flirt With A Naked Werewolf from Amazon.com!