Review: A Tiger's Tale (Arrowtown #1) by Lisa Oliver

Seth Carmichael never did anything wrong, but instead of working at the local library, he was running for his life. His herd was hunting him and with few resources, Seth's options were fading fast. Until, that is, he heard the rumble of a motorcycle. Peeking through the tree he was hiding in, he couldn't believe his eyes. Had salvation come in the form of a badass biker?

Ra (no last name and proud of it) was a tiger on a mission. He'd scented his mate and then the little rabbit ran away before his teeth could engage. Ra heard the gossip around Arrowtown; he knew his mate was a hunted man. But if the sweet man was on the run, he needed someone to look after him; Ra figured he was the right man for the job.

A meeting, a mating and yet another meeting. What should have been a straight forward relationship turned into so much more on their very first outing as a mated couple. Now Ra has to count on the strength of his mate and the help of his friends, if he and Seth are ever to have the HEA they'd planned for. And what was with all these Fae turning up out of the blue?

Warning: Contains a tiger who keeps putting his foot in it; a tiny lop-eared rabbit who is stronger than he looks and a bunch of friends who’ll hide a body, no questions asked. 

Now this is my type of brain candy!  A classic tale of predator meets prey but, instead of eating him, falls in love.  *sigh*   It just speaks to my romantically perverted heart.  This has almost everything you need for a successful shifter-fluff-with-mpreg story.  There’s the overprotective Alpha male and his diminutive mate.  There’s claiming and growling and biting and insta-love and hot sex and antics and shenanigans and secrets all mixed into an over-the-top storyline.  There’s lions and tigers and bears, oh my!  Sadly, there was no KNOTTING.  Coulda done with some KNOTTING. I was able to look past that oversight because, dude!  There’s a bunny shifter in this book!  An adorable, itty bitty white lop-eared bunny!  And he mates with a tiger!  A big, strong, growly tiger!  There was no way I was passing this one up. 

At the start of the story, Seth, the aforementioned adorable itty bitty white lop-eared bunny, has been on the run from his herd for two weeks for reasons unknown.  His mate, a tiger shifter named Ra, finally catches up to him and lures him out of hiding with his magical peen and a picnic basket full of salad.  They’ve both known they were mates for a few months now but Seth, in true bunny fashion, fled with a startled “eep!” when they first ran into each other.  He was scared, y’all!  Ra came on a bit too strong and he’s just an itty bitty thing, he couldn’t help but run away and hide.  But what bunny could resist a salad?  Not to mention tiger peen. *waggles eyebrows*

So, Seth moves in with Ra and his biker gang/motorcycle club/whatever.  The alpha of his herd is not happy about this turn of events at all.  Cue the shenanigans. 

This story was so ridiculous and over-the-top I couldn’t help but love it.  It had the standard ‘surprise! You can get pregnant!’ trope, the ‘you’re not who you think you are’ trope, the ‘Luke, I am your father’ trope plus a fair amount of ‘lack of communication’ and HUGE Big Misunderstanding. And I devoured it all with my big ole Suspend Your Disbelief spoon.   Seth was just freaking adorable and, surprisingly, Ra had a goofy side that was endearing as all get out.  Ra’s biker buddies/gang/whatever were great too and I hope we get their stories in the books to come.

To be honest, I hesitated to read this one.  I had tried to read one of the author’s earlier works a while back but I ended up bailing on it because of a severe lack of editing.  This one, I’m happy to say, has much less editing issues.  There were still a few errors (misuse of homophones, incorrect use of a turn of phrase, etc.) but, I was able to get past (<- see? this is the correct usage of a homophone) them due to the amount of charm this book exudes. 

Plus, how can you go wrong with this: 

He’d been thinking about it a lot though and his favorite idea was a tiny rabbit with tiger stripes.

On the brain candy scale, I would say this is like a variety bag.  It’s got a little bit of everything to satisfy your sweet tooth, all wrapped up in individual fun-sized packaging.  Enjoyable as a treat every now and then but eat too many in a row and you wind up with a stomachache and a couple of cavities.

Find it on Goodreads!