Another book goes to the dogs but not without the help of Ms Easton's fertile and slightly twisted imagination. Roman and Matt were a fun couple though their ride was pretty bumpy. The general was a total pain in the ass while Luci was terrific. It was good to see that Tim's veggies took off and his roses were winning awards. I hope we get to visit Mad Creek again for another tail wagging adventure. ( )

3,5 stars ( )

I wasn't going to read this series.

I resisted because, although I love fantasy and sf, I'm often less happy when animals are involved, because I've been around so many. Writers often fail in giving me believable creatures. I read an entire well-written novel about dragons who, except for flying and some mechanical aspects, might as well have been humans. It's annoying.

So I'm wary. However, I have read quite a few Eli Easton novels and stories. I trust her in that she has my number where romance goes. There is always humor, always this underlying sweetness, always this sense of family no matter the dynamics, all of which hit my sweet spots.

So, when I was hunting for a m/m romance and just couldn't find anything that appealed to me (as with all romances for me, I want well written, well researched, compelling, sweet, and HEA), I finally read the amazon sample of How To Howl At the Moon, and laughed, and surrendered. When I was done, I shook my head, and bought this one along with a f/m, started them at the same time, but finished this one first because I had to know. There's a lot of actual danger and man, hurdles for our two characters to get past. I had to know how Easton managed it. And STILL, she made me laugh out loud several times!

The upshot is, I'll read the whole series. She got me. I'm glad.

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How to Walk Like a Man is the second book in the ‘Howl at the Moon’ series. One MC is Deputy Roman Charsguard, a quickened ex-military German Shepherd that served in Afghanistan with his K-9 handler James. The other MC is Matt Barclay who is a DEA investigator, who we briefly met in Book 1. This story is told in third person through not only the MCs pov, but a few others which I’ll talk about further in my review.



The blurb does a good job of giving an overview of what this story is about. Matt comes to town on assignment by the DEA to help monitor the possible growth of marijuana or drug farms. Lance, the sheriff who we met in Book 1, is highly stressed at the idea. He is desperate to keep the town safe from anyone finding out that there are quickened living there. This leads to hostility between Matt and Lance, a marked difference between Matt and Roman, who is nothing but kind to Matt. He confuses Matt with what appear to be gestures of interest, but at the same time Roman acts as if he’s doing nothing out of the ordinary.

Roman has ‘quickened’ or become human after his handler, James was killed in Afghanistan. Very few dogs become human. Only those with exceptional love for their human and the humans love for them experience quickening. Through flashbacks, we are told how Roman first meets James, their training, James’ death, and finally how Roman turned human. I find it very sad that only after an owner's death is a dog quickened. It’s a rough life for dogs after they’re human, they're not equipped to deal with our complex world, but Roman eventually makes it to Mad Creek. I usually dislike many long flashbacks like the author did, again, for this story. She likes to write long flashbacks in her books, but it wasn’t so annoying this time because Roman pretty much sounded the same during his time as a dog and as a human.

Oh Roman! You are the Best Dog in the World! That’s what James would tell Roman. Roman as a human and a dog was loyal, open, trusting and gentle. The innocence and humor was terrifically written, especially when Roman asked Lance questions about sexuality. Lance was hilarious in his embarrassment and difficulty in answering Roman’s inquiries. As Roman grows more human and starts to experience more emotions, and difficulties with Matt, many of James’ words come back to Roman to keep him going when he wants to quit. You can do it, Roman. Are you a brave dog? You’re the best dog in the world! I’m paraphrasing of course, but those words and memories, help Roman through the hard times. The author did a great job writing Roman and I love him to pieces. He’s one of my new favorite characters.

Matt of course is suspicious of what’s happening in the town but he can’t put his finger on it. I thought he was an OK character, not very strong, just drifting along doing his job and trying to get his father’s approval. Towards the end of the story I thought he was rather a selfish character. I can’t put my finger on exactly why, but the feeling was there.

I want to comment on the multiple povs in this book. I’ve read about four or five of the author’s books during this past month. Not all of them, but enough of them had multiple povs. I know it may not bother most readers and that's great for them. I, however, don’t care to be reading four to five different povs in a contemporary romance and that's my personal preference, especially when leaving one out would have given the story more mystery. The book not only included the MC’s, Roman and Matt’s povs, but by going back in time, it included Roman the Dog’s pov, which luckily wasn’t too far from the same as Roman the human. It also included Lance’s pov and the villain, Colin Clarey. By including Colin’s pov, situations that we didn’t need to know about at the time, could’ve been answered later in the story without a problem. By adding Colin’s pov, it looked like his pov was added just to make the book longer. I can see an epic story like LotR having multiple povs, but in a short book, it’s too much. Colin’s pov watered down the suspense making the plot less interesting.

The finale with the showdown didn’t work for me. I don’t mean the dogs part, I mean how the trucks came charging towards the blockade and…stopped. Really? They have all that momentum and stopped? Sure a tire was blown out, but the bad guys had the firepower, they could have rammed the vehicles and commandeered one. Instead they wait and give Lance and the guys FIVE minutes to move the vehicles. That was incredibly unbelievable. And when Clary opened his door to fire at the dogs? If you saw a pack of dogs slinking toward your vehicle would you open a door? A window maybe, but a door? And tough guys with fire power not willing to fire on dogs? Again, not believable, especially in reality it’s known that they don’t have any qualms about killing innocent hikers and rangers that stumble on their farms. The ending cut down on the star rating for me.

The one thing, or should I say person, that carried this book was Roman. Roman in all his innocence, love and trust, he is a truly amazing character. The humor was also great as is the idea of the quickening of dogs into humans. It’s a brilliant original explanation of shifting. I’d love to give this book five stars, but the overabundance of povs cut down my enjoyment of the story, as did the showdown. I give How to Walk Like a Man 4 Stars.




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I liked the first book better.
This one felt a little choppy. And NOT because Roman is a dog.
Still, this was a nice enough read. ( )