Something Wild by Sable Grey

TITLE: Something Wild
AUTHOR: Sable Grey
PUBLISHER: Cobblestone Press
LENGTH: Novella (roughly 24k)
GENRE: Shapeshifter historical erotic romance
COST: $4.99

Jack the Ripper is on the loose, and Detective Baden Sikes has been called in to solve these grisly murders. What the officials don’t realize is that Baden has his own dark secret, one he hopes he won’t have to unleash in order to find the Ripper. When he catches a would-be thief on the street, he takes her home in a gesture of good will. Cora is a survivor, and he responds to her innate goodness in ways that surprise him. But can he resist the temptation she presents before it’s too late? For either of them?

Before I say anything about the story, I have to say that this cover is one of the scariest I’ve purchased this year. Scary bad. I know it’s supposed to be Baden, but to me, it’s a frightening cross between Johnny Depp and Michael Jackson. It freaked me out enough when I first saw it that I almost didn’t read the blurb. It took everything I had to block the image out as I read the book, so that I could give Baden a fighting chance.

I know Cobblestone has had this Shifters series for a while, but this is the first one I’ve bought. I always thought that they were standalone stories, with a shifter as its main character, but after reading this, I’m not entirely convinced of that. To start, there’s a prologue on the front of this story with Baden’s housekeeper witnessing a scene with an old blind woman. I waited the entire story for this to play into the primary plot, but it never happened. A rune of destruction is mentioned, but none of that is ever brought up again, which, for someone new to the series, is a massive flaw. It left me questioning more than I should, and when I go back to look at other stories, I just don’t see how they can all be connected. They run the gamut in regards to genre. And yet, if this isn’t related to the series, what in hell does it have to do with anything else?

Those kind of questions don’t come until after I’ve finished the story. For the most part while I was reading it, I enjoyed myself. The prose is simple and clean, and nothing jars too much as being out of period. I was even able to tolerate the couple instances of headhopping. Baden is likable, in spite of being a little brusque, and if Cora is a little too good to be true, I’m mostly okay with that. The author builds the romance between them realistically, without anything happening too fast, so that when passions finally do explode, I believed it. The erotica is simple but direct, not overwhelming in the least, nor unfortunately all that memorable. The focus is more on the romance, which somehow seems right for these two.

When things began to unravel was the final chapter and resolution of the story. I won’t spoil what happens, but I finished the story completely disbelieving how it could have finished the way it did. Oh, it’s an HEA, no doubt about that. But the success of the plot’s solution relies on one fact – that the heightened sense of smell Baden has, and utilizes throughout the story even in human form, fails him. I don’t buy it. At all. Maybe if there was explanation of his shifting abilities, or less attention paid to his heightened ability throughout the story, I could’ve believed it. As it was, the entire ending of the story failed to work for me so utterly that I didn’t even care about the romance anymore. It’s a shame. There was actual potential in this short little story. In spite of its godawful cover.

Readability	8/10 – Mild head-hopping only slightly detracts from mostly readable prose.
Hero	7/10 – Solemn and mysterious, his enigmatic appearances intrigue enough to keep my interested.
Heroine	6/10 – Not a damsel, but I’m never completely sure why all the men fall for her.
Entertainment value	5/10 – I was actually rather enjoying myself with this, until the ending disappointed me enough to drag this score down.
World building	7/10 – The world of late 19th century London is believable, though I have no clues at all about the paranormal aspects of it.
TOTAL:	33/50