Fangs for the Fantasy

Marty Andrews is well on her way to success having worked her way up the Bobbie-Sue cosmetics chain.  Marty has even gotten to the point where she can mentor Wendy and Nina.  All Marty can think about is the moment when she will sell enough product to earn the coveted blue convertible and how well it will match her colour wheel.  It all comes to a grinding halt when her toy puddle Muffin decides to attack her werewolf  neighbour Keegan and Marty gets bitten trying to free the werewolf from Muffin, who suddenly thinks she is bigger than she is.

Before Marty knows it, she starts sprouting hair everywhere, cannot control her temper and there's a little issue with her tail appearing when she gets mad.  Things turn from bad to worse when Marty finds herself kidnapped and forced into the back of car.  Marty's a werewolf now and despite her desire to spend her life on colour wheels, things have to change and change fast.  Then there's the issue of finding Keegan tempting as hell.  Somehow, Marty has to get the hang of being a werewolf, trying to stay alive and figure out exactly what it means to be part of Keegan's pack.

At the beginning of The Accidental Werewolf, I was far from a fan of Marty.  On one hand, it was nice to move away from the tough girl protagonist that we often find in this genre but on the other, Marty was simply speaking irritating.  I simply couldn't take her seriously and building a career out of selling makeup and being obsessed with sending the appropriate message just irked me. I began to think differently about her when I learned that she ended a long term relationship because she wanted to focus on her career, though I still didn't take her career seriously.  It irked me that she was more interested in lip gloss than figuring out what being a werewolf meant for the longest time. I will however say that Marty grew on me as the book continued on.

Marty of course is another protagonist with no family and a dead mother. This fact of course makes joining Keegan's family rather appealing.  When Marty thinks about it, her focus on her career has made her extremely isolated.  The only two people she can call friend are Wendy and Nina, who work under her at Bobbie-Sue and because of that, Marty has to wonder whether the word of friend is even appropriate to use with her.  As it turns out, Wendy and Nina are both loyal to Marty and friend is absolutely the right word.  I love Nina's take no prisoners attitude and Wendy's shy peacemaker personality. 

As love interests go, Keegan is the typical alpha male werewolf.  He orders Marty around, and withholds information for supposedly her own good.  We are told repeatedly how handsome he is and that his scent drives Marty wild.  We don't really get to know much about Keegan beyond his authoritative nature but I still felt myself feeling sorry for him every time Marty uttered the faithful words, "we need to talk."  The amount of patience he showed her is remarkable, even if we take into account that he is responsible for her becoming a werewolf in the first place.  Marty is quite literally a pain in the ass, and I have no idea how Keegan tolerated her, let alone fell in love with her.

The Accidental Werewolf is utterly predictable but that is to be expected from paranormal chick lit.  I knew exactly who the antagonist was and why they wanted Marty out of the way.  The big Perry Mason style confession didn't exactly come as a surprise.  That said, I completely enjoyed the ride.  If you go into The Accidental Werewolf in the right frame of mind, expecting light fluff, a little irritation and a few laughs, it's not a bad book at all.  Predictability, the motivations behind the antagonists actions made perfect sense to me.  I don't know that I would have gone as far as murder but a sense of betrayal for both the male and female antagonist made sense to me. 

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