Lewis has never been kissed.Omega penguin shifters aren’t allowed any physical contact with an alpha until their Pebble Gifting Season, when alphas present a pebble to their desired mate. Lewis has always followed the rules.Until he meets Todd. A polar bear shifter.Everyone knows that polar bear shifters are unreliable players who don’t mate for life. But Todd is breathtakingly beautiful, with a … breathtakingly beautiful, with a body as big as a mountain and a head of thick, white hair. Lewis can’t manage to look away.
In Anchorage Alaska where penguin shifters and polar bear shifters have been at odds for over a century, even a friendship between Todd and Lewis is forbidden. But as Lewis’s Pebble Gifting Season draws closer, their forbidden friendship turns into a passion neither of them can ignore.
A Pebble for Lewis is a 37,000-word best-friends-to-lovers romance with a size difference, knotting, and MPreg of the penguin egg variety. It’s set in the same world as the Heron Manor series, but it stands alone.
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In ‘A Pebble for Lewis, Alaskan Pebble Gifters series Book 1, A young male omega penguin shifter (Lewis) accompanies his omega father (Daniel) to a polar bear’s own/operated jewelry shop to witness the removal mating necklace. After many years of abandonment by the alpha penguin, the necklace encases the pebble his omega father was gifted was cast into the polar bear’s forge, never to be seen again. Lewis finds the polar bear shifter Todd intriguing and it’s obvious Todd is attracted to Lewis. They embark on a journey of love that covers six years and culminates in pregnancy with twin eggs and partnership following complicated penguin mating traditions.
The care Todd took in learning about the penguin culture was something Lewis didn’t expect. It was so absolutely touching. How he told Lewis he was expecting and he put forth the extra effort anyway. Some of the most touching scenes I’ve ever heard/read yet including some scorching hot sexual intimacies between truly loving and lovable characters! This M/M shifter series is, without a doubt, the sweetest and loveliest I’ve yet to encounter. Definitely the loveliest shifter series I’ve encountered!
A Pebble for Lewis is the first book in the Alaskan Pebble Gifters series, a sweet shifter omegaverse series with cuteness galore. This short novel does a great job setting up the world that polar bear and penguin shifters reside in, and introduce us to their different customs and viewpoints. I adore the worldbuilding, but even more, I love the sweet and gentle romance between the two main characters and their delightful nesting scene. This was a joy to read.
A Pebble for Lewis – Lewis and Todd – Lewis and Todd both take a risk and are willing to be patient. I love how both of them show respect for the customs of their respective families. I also love the peek at Ansel and I can’t wait for his own story.
The audible version that was packaged with An Egg for Ansel was really great.
Todd and Lewis met so young I figured there would be a ton of angst but there isn’t. Yes, they have the Romeo and Juliet sneaking around due to their families but it’s drama free between them. I liked that they have people in their corner as they make their relationship public. Each of Todd’s gestures, from the pebble ceremony to having everyone over to meet their family, spoke of his commitment to honoring Lewis’ traditions and making his mate happy. Lewis’s love for Todd makes him a bit emotional at moments in the best way and he too is more than willing to incorporate Todd’s traditions into their life.
When I say, A Pebble for Lewis is without doubt the sweetest , most charming and feel good book, I read this year; it isn’t me gushing or/and hyperbolizing ; because if that were the case, I don’t have any problems admitting .
So, yes, this story is all that and it also has an interesting, layered, detailed world building and Lore around it. Amy Bellows took all we know about Penguins and Polar Bears , character traits, social structure, mating habits, hatching and created a extraordinary world where penguins and Polar bears shifters exist and mate and prosper. And told so vividly and with such a realism , at one point, I had trouble separating what is real and what is the lore she created.
Lewis and Todd are likeable, sweet characters. Their undeniable chemistry , scorching passion , love, tenderness and need for each other made them a memorable and unforgettable couple.
Throughout this entertaining story, I had a big happy smile on my face and it left me with a happy and content heart.
Coming of age, friends to lovers romance.
ATTENTION! Need to update this review secondary to a misunderstanding regarding syntax.
I must confess, I did not understand how the writer decided to address the lack of singular third person pronoun without designating a gender. Yes, the English language is sadly lacking in this department and should have dealt with this matter centuries ago, but it didn’t. Amy Bellows stated that traditionally, shifter young were not assigned a gender until the cubs/pups/chicks were a few years old. Why? Who knows? So she decided to use third person plural without mention of gender which we do have in the English language. The problem was that this new concept was not clearly specified except in the notes at the end of the book. It was more obvious in Book Two. However, when I have found myself in this position, I know you can ALWAYS manipulate syntax so that you don’t have to resort to this. I experimented with this very concept late one evening and was successful in writing the last few chapters of this book without resorting to any third person singular (s/he), nor did I need to use third person plural. It CAN be done without looking stinted.
After much consideration, I decided I would not change my rating. I do love this storyline, but considering that I pulled 1.5 stars from a perfect 5 star review is that there were more problems other than the above s/he issues. I still think the reader did not need to be confused, even if warned in advance within the storyline, not outside the novel in the author’s notes. And there were problems with researching and editing. I do wish the storyline alone could have floated it on its own merits…
Now back to the original review.
Technically 3.5 stars for the story itself, but 4.0 for the entire book.
Can’t do this review without spoilers. Proceed at your own risk.
As a means of trying to keep a bored brain and frail body from crashing, I searched out “Alaskan romance” in the Kindle department. This book popped up. As I’m always for an mpreg story and never heard one taking place in Alaska, I felt this was something different. And it really was… and definitely entertaining in the shifter, MM, and mpreg departments. That was a mouthful.
Length: I’m calling this a shorter novel as it read just a little too long for my standard novella. Its pace was just fine, especially considering the time span that had to be traversed. It’s difficult to write anything romantic when you must jump a year, even two years, without completely losing your audience as well as attempting to maintain the reader’s suspension of disbelief (that’s what crucial!). I was surprised how I didn’t feel like the storyline was being rushed as this really was more of a “day in the life of…” story than it was an action-adventure plot. That impressed me.
World-building: I found the world-creating in this novel to be original for me. Oh, I’ve read a ton of shifter books including mpreg, but I never thought of a polar bear-penguin love story. Sure, it sounds quite far-fetched, but when it’s introduced, it feels quite a natural, and I used to live in this area of Alaska! I had to laugh at the division of Anchorage. Of course! The polar bears would be the artists! And I could easily see the neighborhoods where the polar bear artists worked and sold from. (Including a few eclectic bookstores. You guys from Anchorage know exactly whom I’m talking about!) I can only guess how the pioneering penguin shifters felt when they immigrated from the South Pole towards the North Pole, considering how they would be natural cannon fodder for the polar bears. (This is definitely worth a story or two!) Though I’m not surprised how penguins shifters are being portrayed in a shifter-based Anchorage. Someone has to balance out the polar bear community… maybe in organizational skills. It’s piqued my curiosity as well as my imagination more so than most books have done son in 2019. However, I do have more than a few, annoying problems with its separation of male/female and alpha/omega creations. I mean, since we have male/female characters, is this a same-sex and opposite-sex relationships’ universe? Or just same sex? It’s difficult to tell. Todd talks about his two mothers while Lewis has two fathers. Is this all there is? Lewis’ father talks about not ever having another relationship with an alpha again, so is this their version of same-orientation relationships? Are there any male-female relationships? Not well-explained, I’m afraid.
Characters: These are closely linked to the above world-building. The limited POVs (only two) works out very well here, more like “Polar bear says”, “Penguin says” which is highly appropriate considering the storyline presented. And I do find the comparisons between the standard polar bear shifter (and its accompanying myths) and the standard penguin shifter (and its accompanying myths). Apparently Lewis has more polar bear shifter characteristics while Todd has more penguin shifter characteristics. Or maybe both our main characters appreciate characteristics of each other’s animal. No wonder they attract each other. I appreciate Lewis’ attempt to be open-minded to Todd’s more worldly experience while trying not to disparage his own inexperience of the world in general. After all, he did his post-high-school education online rather than at the local university. I wonder what kind of influence his father had on him for doing so. I do appreciate how much time Amy Bellows took to flesh out these two characters as well as her secondary characters (Danial, Lewis’ father, and Ansel, Todd’s friend). I only wished we could have seen more of Todd’s mothers. (I don’t even know if both were his biologicals or only one was. This universe does confirm that two males (alpha/omega) can procreate, but what about the females? Can male/female do so, too? I wish this was addressed in this book rather than having to wait for the next in the series to say so, one way or another. I guess that’s the biologist in me talking. I like the introspection presented. Yeah, Lewis overthinks a ton, but Todd knows how he thinks and when to interrupt him from continuing to do so. That’s a very wonderful mate for someone like Lewis to have. As for Todd, he needs that stability in his relationship for whatever reason he has yet to voice, but at least he knows what he wants and he goes for his desires and dreams without wavering. His only concern is being upfront and honest to Lewis as well as his own self. That says a lot. One of my problems was… what kind of shifter was Lewis’ father? I checked everywhere, including an in-depth Kindle search. I was led to assumed he has to be a polar bear, but nothing really confirmed that except for Daniel’s initial animosity towards Todd. But that doesn’t mean Lewis’ father was. Daniel could had been anti-alpha as well.
Editing and continuity: This is where I’m taking Ms. Bellows to task here. Yes, there were problems, and it appeared that the last two chapters were a complete miss by whomever was editing or beta-reading. (This should had been picked up by any ARC reader!) I kept seeing: Singular pronoun subject consistently paired with plural possessive! Especially when we’re dealing with twins? Come on! I kept trying to figure out whom she was referring to at the very end!!! This is the main reason why my review is missing 1.5 stars. There were more than a few places where better research should had been done. Sorry, but Alaskans don’t think much of the Chrysler Building as the first thought to come to mind when it comes to tall things. Not buildings. Mountains? Now we’re talking. I would have accepted a Denali reference for something tall (and that’s Denali, not McKinley). Alaskans would first recognize Nature’s tall creations long before something manmade. There were missing words, wrong words, bad punctuation… Too many easy things to correct had this had the usual three read-throughs once everything was set prior to publishing. Looks like more than one person pooped out before the last two chapters. I think someone had a deadline that was not reasonable or realistic.
Despite the above, I was intrigued by this first-of-a-series book, so much that I would be willing to purchase the second one. But this is a novel only for those who like MM mpreg. If you can’t deal with it, then don’t read it. I’m looking forward to seeing what Ansel is like. There is a quick blurb for the next book in this series at the end, and it only makes me impatient to read it! Ansel sounds like a great character to build upon, especially when we’re talking about two omegas rather than the usual alpha/omega situation. That gives the total rating an additional half-star.
This book was so sweet! The characters were well suited to one another and the story was exactly what I needed for a nice, cozy read.
I read this book in an afternoon. Once I started, I couldn’t put it down. It is genuinely one of the best books I have read in 2019. The courtship is so sweet and I was rooting for the main characters 100%.
This author is one that I look out for. I can’t wait for the next book in the series.
A Pebble for Lewis is the first book in the Alaskan Pebble Gifters series by Amy Bellows. I ove the friends to lovers theme in tis book and the sort of forbidden love. Lewis and Todd are supposed to be opposites, a penguin adaptation polar bear aren’t supposed to mate… but fate doesnt always follow rules. And I love these two together. The story is fun, sweet, funny and wonderful. Highly recommend this book. I can not wait to read more of this series.
I totally loved this book! I truly hope there will be more! Todd and Lewis are so adorable! A polar bear and a penguin? Shifter stories are some of my favorites. You will not be disappointed reading!
Oh my goodness, this book is so cute. It covers years in time as our heroes reach maturity. It has very complex culture structures for both the Penguin and Polar Bear species, Lewis for example must wait till he’s 23 for his Pebble Gifting Season, while Polar Bears rarely stay with one partner for life. Different ideologies that we spend a lot of the book adapting to fit Lewis and Todd, in an extremely fun way. There’s really no angst, lots of feel good and a lovely HEA at the end. A real joy to read.
This is a new author to me & I was pleasantly surprised at how well this delightfully, sweet Mpreg shifter romance was written, I really found it a pleasure to read. The plot is well-written & entertaining with some intense moments. There are good scene descriptions & world building. I found the characters likable with good chemistry between them & their personalities are well-developed & intense with far-reaching plans & a determination to be accepted, they display believable emotional feelings & reactions.
It is about: a male omega penguin shifter (Lewis) comes into contact with a alpha male polar bear shifter (Todd) & a friendship develops with their love for gaming but the attractions begin to flare & decisions will have to be made, some twists, drama, secrets, prejudices, cultural differences, a pebble gifting season tradition, attractions, humor, friendship, admittance, misunderstandings, confrontation, expectations, promises, fated mates, concern, nesting, hatching, surprises, love, contentment, some steam & a wonderful conclusion. I enjoyed reading this Mpreg romance & would recommend it.
I absolutely adored this story.
Lewis and Todd were absolutely amazing.
The love that bound them together was strong enough to weather all manner of adversity that tried to separate them along with being from two completely different worlds.
Even when the problems were self-doubts they worked together and made it a priority to be there for one another.
A truly gorgeous rendition of love.
This was such a cute quick read. I really enjoyed the world building, which for the length of the book was pretty amazing. I really enjoyed the struggle the MCs have to bring the two cultures (penguin and polar bear) together into something that works for both of them. I’m really looking forward to the next book in the series!
I thoroughly enjoyed this story. It gave me a case of warm fuzzy feelings that linger long after I finished reading it.
Todd and Lewis are from opposing shifter communities and must find a way to be together while dealing with friends, family and society as a whole.
Their love makes this a must read.
I highly recommend this book to all. Enjoy.
A Pebble for Lewis by author Amy Bellows is cute adorable romance set in the world of Heron Manor. I loved this story. I have never read penguin shifters before and this was a cute way to be introduced to them. I also love the nesting piece brought in. This is the second book I have read with nesting in it from Ms. Bellows and I loved the twist she put on it this time. No pillow is safe in this story.
This book is written in dual pov. Which is nice we get to see inside the heads of both characters with no confusion.
Lewis is a penguin shifter. They have ordered lives and rituals for things. He first meets Todd who happens to be the same age as him when he is 17. Todd is a polar bear shifter. They forge special mating collars that shift in size for shifters to always wear. Todd removed on for Lewis’ dad. That was a particularly sad scene. I really felt for all the characters.
Todd is a caring soul. He is willing to be friends with Lewis long before anything actually happens with them. I liked that even though polar bear shifters are not as scheduled, or normally faithful Todd is different. He knows what wants and is willing to put in the work to get there.
Overall this is a great story. I loved the characters, and humor in this story. There are a few time jumps that make it a little choppy in places but overall this is really a story I loved and I would definitely want to read more like this.
Five Shooting Stars
This is a book that makes you go “squee” and fall in love. Bellows’s nack for creating adorable characters and a charming story line endear her to me. Lewis and Todd are just lovely and their tale is so engrossing that I was sad it was over.
I have no words! No words how amazing and cute this book was!
Let me tell you that I didn’t liked this cover when I first saw it. Then either for the second time or the third… But I knew one thing – I NEED this book, because of Amy Bellows! And because hello, it’s about penguin and polar bear shifters! I mean holy hell, how yummy this was, just all the awww feelings.
Lewis and Todd’s story was super cute, super sweet while hot with erotica and heartbreakingly romantic at the same time. It gave me all the good feels, I smiled and was really happy while reading it. Loved the way they grow up together and seperately because of their society. I loved this whole new world about the shifters, loved the penguins and polar bears too. It was really fascinating to read this book and I really couldn’t wait for the shifting scenes and was SO REALLY HAPPY when it happened. *sigh* When Lewis shifted into penguin form and Todd into polar bear- I just awwwww, lost it and giggled like crazy. Cuteness overload!
Loved their relationship, it was so romantic, and I loved how eager Lewis was about the whole kissing/sex thing, he was such a cutie pie!
And the party with the polar bears OMG it was everything! Especially the after party scene where Todd got super jealous – that scene was super yummy!!!!
And the pebble searching thing, and this whole romantic gesture and the way the penguin shifters chose mate for life, perfect! Todd was really cute how he did everyting for Lewis while he is a polar bear and he’s not chossing mate for all eternity, but still!
And oh my god, my favorite scene ever – the nesting! My poor heart, I nearly had a heart attack, it was that awesome! The whole nesting process then the egg laying, gaaawd! I LOVE nesting scenes and it was so amazing I still have no words for it. And geez, they were so cute together, I mean Todd and Lewis in their nest with the eggs, just AWWWW
I know my whole review is just about me awww-ing, but come on, this book was super duper awesome! And now i’m okay with the cover.
LOVED LOVED IT SO MUCH! I need more! Go Ansel and Daniel!
ps. I want to be a penguin shifter! So cute! But plan B is to be friends with Lewis and/or Todd, i’m not picky!
Todd and Lewis’ story is unlike anything I’ve read recently. You have Todd, a jewelry maker alpha polar bear who looks older than he is and Lewis, a sheltered penguin with strict culture rituals and mating beliefs. When the two meet they’re both just teenagers but somehow know they’re meant to be. They begin spending time together virtually until it grows into more. Todd’s race are not known for relationships or staying true to a single person long term. Can he give Lewis a pebble that symbolizes a lifetime commitment and mean it? Can Lewis honor his race of penguins by mating Todd? Grab this one now and find out. I loved every page turning word of this book.