Greg Lademar is an ordinary and average Army veteran who has settled down with his job as an accountant and his lingering PTSD. He lives a quiet life as a single man, alone on the former blueberry farm he bought from his parents after they retired to Orlando. When a friend who works with animal control asks him to foster Parker, a severely injured dog who has just been rescued from an abusive home, the last thing Greg expects is to be dragged into the mysterious world of the Guardsmen — the bonded pairs of humans and their weredogs, known as Protectors, who are literally the stuff of myths and legends.
Greg’s life is turned upside down by unexpected events involving Parker and the strange Guardsmen pair Marcus and Alex Stephanek, but far more dangerous to him is the man who used to own Parker and holds a grudge for having “his” dog taken from him. A game of cat and mouse ensues, with more on the line than even Greg ever thought possible: his life, and the life of Parker, who has become more important to him than Greg ever imagined a rescue dog could be.
Welcome to the world of Guardsmen, bonded pairs of weredogs and their partners who live on the edges of society -- worshipped and feared in turn, sheltered as much as they are shunned, Guardsmen mates live, love, and die together.
Comment: In January, I've read a book by this author and of this series, which I liked enough but it wasn't as spectacular as I would have liked. I saw that there was another book, whose blurb appealed to me and now I've read it and can say it was, indeed, much better to my personal taste.
When this story begins, Greg Lademar is about to foster a dog recently rescued from an abusive situation. Greg is a war veteran, came home with all the usual PTSD scars but hopes that fostering again, as his parents used to do while he was growing up, will help him bring back good memories. However, the rescued dog seems quite smart and weird at first and at some point it all comes to light that he is actually a Protector. Parker has been in his dog shape for two years because he as kidnapped by someone who wrongly believed he could be his Handler. How all this came to be is what everyone needs to know but now it seems Parker has created a bond with Greg and vice versa. When the institute decides to step in to help Parker, can he truly do well if he is away from Greg? What about Parker's stalker, who now seems to be targeting Greg?
I actually liked this book more than the first. I liked this plot more but more importantly, I liked the development of the relationship between Greg and Parker way more than the one we had in the first book. Somehow, the dynamics here felt better done, even though their story was done differently from the first book's couple.
The book is divided into four sections, all pertaining to a specific stage in the path of Greg and Parker's developing relationship. At first Parker is only interacting with Greg in his dog shape and we get only any notion of what he must be feeling through Greg's eyes. This never changes, as the whole book is told from Greg's POV, but the author did a good job making is seem things happen slowly and in a believable way for us to assume Greg could not guess Parker is a Protector. I think this helped us to see how they could be more than good friends somehow while learning a lot about Greg by seeing him go through his days.
At some point, Parker feels the need to change back and in come the experts from the Institute which regulates Protectors and Handlers, including the couple from the previous book, and this allows things to move forward while secondary issues such as the threats and the placement of characters in their roles continues. I liked it that things were dealt with ease and understanding and, for instance, that the feelings between Greg and Parker were believable, considering how they initially met and interacted.
All this situation was new to both guys and a good part of the story is spent on them learning things, dealing with them and what they meant and among all this, we could see the little things, the small emotional scenes or situations which would be more important than flashy demonstrations and I feel glad the author took the time to set up things slowly and in a slightly romantic fashion too. Greg isn't a very demonstrative guy but I feel his feelings were true and strong, just by having him say/do little things.
Parker is a little harder to read, since we don't have his thoughts unless it's in dialogue, but he comes across as being a quiet and dependable guy who was caught in this unthinkable situation. I think the author did a good enough job setting up things for this to be a plot anyone could understand but I should add that having read the first book and knowing why things are happening this way - regarding Parker being a Protector and being discovered in this mess like this - helped me to accept certain things without more explanations. I can assume that for some readers, some information might seem confusing or too sudden.
Although I liked the pace and progress of the protagonists' relationship, I also think after a while things could have been a bit more obvious in how their bond was established. There are some sweet scenes with them and of course all this was great but sometimes I wish more had been added, that their relationship also had some urgency, some greater need so that had to be together in a much more obvious way... perhaps it's just me, used to certain shape shifter types of "rules"... I think the romantic relationship could have been better highlighted, if more focused on them as guys, rather than on the roles they were given.
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