Buy Me Love by Julie Tetel Andresen is not your average shapeshifter romance – it’s a fresh story, which relies on elements of the police procedural. In a British setting. And the detective plot is cleverly written and keeps you on your toes from beginning to end. It’s a subtle book and really sensual – it has the atmosphere seeping with eroticism that I’ve always enjoyed about Julie Tetel Andresen’s books.
I’ve read several of this author’s books and I can say one thing – she never repeats herself. Her characters are unique and each of her plots transports you to a different setting. There’s something that’s constant though – the plot and characters are always well written.
With werewolves, it’s all about scent. And it’s exciting to watch how the two main characters sniff for clues, while they also become attuned to one another. Scents, gestures, postures and words – they’re all meaningful for the love story.
The hero, DCI Moses Reilly, an intuitive copper with a keen eye for detail, is usually a focused man who gives his all for the job. But he fights to keep himself focused when a dazzling werewolf woman comes into his life. Enter Zelda Sachsen, a security operative who assists Reilly in his investigation. And she’s everything a werewolf should be – tough, assertive, sharp and very sexual. After all, she has the best werewolf nose there is. Only that Reilly has a hard time believing she’s really a werewolf…
I liked it that, this time, the heroine was the werewolf and not the other way round. It breaks the stereotype. And I loved the strong Valkyrie-like heroine, and the intriguing world of scents that she builds around herself… and, of course, the delicious way she pursues her man…
This book made me keep a sharp eye on clues and shades of meaning. And they were sensuously inserted there – in the very first meeting between the two main characters, which takes place in tantalizingly tense circumstances. A man and a woman keenly trying to read one another, without letting the guard down…