When someone nearly shoots veterinarian Skylar it brings conservation officer Max back into her life as he pursues another case that may have ties to hers.

Skylar and Max have chemistry, however their romance doesn’t involve much conflict or tension, on occasion he isn’t sure he trusts her (he always gets past it quickly) and she’s hung up on the fact that he wouldn’t have sex with her when they were both drunk (doesn’t that make him a good man?), but neither of those things are much of a stumbling block for a future together.

While the author throws in a twist in the latter stages of the novel (which I would have liked to see explored deeper), there isn’t much of a who done it guessing game, this is more a matter of wondering when they’ll make their next move against Skylar which is fine, that’s its own kind of suspense. However, it seemed questionable that Skylar didn’t live her life or protect her animals like you’d think someone would in the line of fire. A bullet grazes Skylar’s ear (very early, this is not a spoiler) and later another incident endangers one of her animals, so you’d think thereafter she’d proceed with more caution, like say, keep herself and the animals indoors (or at least keep them within sight) but she didn’t really. I get that to move the story forward, to even have a story, there can’t be an impenetrable force field around Skylar, the evil-doers have to be able to reach her, still, it could have at least been a bit harder for them to do so.

For me, much more so than the romance or the crime, the animals were the star of this one, I loved them and feared for them more than any of the humans. Becky the chicken and Stella the wolf had such distinct and emotionally engaging personalities, that I’m convinced this author could write a fantastic novel entirely from an animal’s point of view. ( )