Title:  Bear Essentials
Series:  Bears of Blackrock #1
Author:  Lia Davis
Published:  April 23, 2015
My Rating:  4 stars
Source:  Purchased, Owned Kindle Edition
Cover Description:

Fresh from an ugly breakup that trampled her spirit, Nichole just wants to hide away. Unfortunately, her BFF has other plans. Nichole gets dragged to a girls’ night out at new club called The Claw, where she meets the intense and gorgeous Trey Black. With eyes that burn and a body built for sin, any woman would sit up and take notice. But why bother? Men like him didn’t date women like her.

Trey considers it a good day if he can just stay out of trouble. As the youngest son of the bear Alpha, he’s a master at getting his way. When he meets the curvy, raven-haired goddess, Nichole, he realizes exactly what he wants and knows that she’s worth any amount of trouble. All he has to do is seduce all of her insecurities away and claim her as his bonded mate.

Hot, sexy Shifter alert – definitely readers 18+

Would you like to meet Trey’s mischievous little cousin?  Then read on for my thoughts about Bear Essentials.

Nichole first encounters Trey at Beary Sweets, a bakery and cafe owned and run by his sister Tiffany.  When Nichole first notices the three brawny men in a nearby booth she assumes they are making fun of her so she does her best to ignore that table.  When one of the men comes to stand by her table and talks to her she has no intention of playing games and walks out.  As Trey tries to follow the woman he’s scented as his fated mate, Tiffany stops him with a warning of how badly Nichole was treated by a recent jerk of a boyfriend.  Later that night Trey again sees Nichole with his sister and some of their friends at The Claw, a bar and restaurant that offers good food, music and dancing.  Surrounded by people that seem to know Trey, Nichole will let down her guard a bit enough to see that he is honestly interested in her and she can’t help but react to him.

Since Bear Essentials is a short novella, I think that’s enough of a tease.  I’ll be honest and say that I’ve enjoyed every story that I’ve read by Lia Davis.  Her shifters are hot, sexy, pure alpha and their big furry selves can easily be wrapped around their mate’s little finger with only a glance.  When these men love, they love all out, completely and for a lifetime.

Nichole is normally comfortable in her own skin.  It’s only when the jerk she’d been seeing didn’t defend her when his friends made comments about her curves that she began to try to hide herself away – from sight, from the possibility of rejection.  So she’s not really buying Trey’s attraction and right now her middle name is “skeptical” about any compliment he says to her.  But she’ll learn – bears are nothing if honest about how they love curvy women, especially their mates.

So come along for the romance as Trey does everything in his power to show Nichole that she is indeed his fated mate.  Oh, and about that mischievous little one… watch out for Jack as an escape artist gets away from his baby (or cub) sitter.  🙂

I really enjoyed Bear Essentials, and it’s a great introduction to this series – lots of interesting secondary characters who I’m hoping will have their own stories real soon now.

Available in paperback and for the Kindle