His second chance is her salvation …Big, tatted-out bull shifter Maddox used to work as a thug for hire, but now he’s a drifter with his old life in ruins. All he knows is that he wants to be better than he was. When he hitchhikes into the small town of Silvermine, Arizona, he’s not planning to stay. But first he helps out a teenager in trouble, and the next thing he knows, the kid’s alluring … the kid’s alluring aunt walks into his life, and runs away with his heart. For the first time in his life, Maddox has something of his own to protect.
Blind tea-shop owner Verity has been caught up in a dangerous struggle with the town’s corrupt sheriff and a greedy landowner trying to force her to sell. First Maddox saves her niece, and then he offers to help her save her business. Teaming up might be the solution she’s been hoping for, but Verity has spent her life learning not to believe in happy endings.
And with a sheriff who would break every law to stop them, it’ll take all his strength, her wits, and their courage to get out of this alive …
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There is a very entertaining, tongue in cheek humor to Zoe Chant’s, 5th book in her Bodyguard Shifters series. This novel picks up where Book 4, Daycare Dragon, left off. Though it could be read as a stand alone (There were no cliffhangers per se, in previous books), it does refer to previous events and characters. Zoe Chant however, has a knack for building believable worlds and characters that capture your heart from the very first page. She slowly and carefully crafts these into multi-dimensional beings as the story unfolds. And her fence of humor shows when she places an old world bull shifter in a blind women’s tea shop. Add to this a corrupt sheriff and an evil, absurdly rich villain and you have an action pack storyline that Zoe is famous for. There is nothing cliche about Zoe Chant’s tales, though, she does always deliver on the happily ever after you expect in a paranormal romance. She always adds that twist that has you wondering up to the last minute if good will really triumph over evil. Or will the hero have to resort to not so legal means to end the conflict and save the day. Zoe Chant’s female protagonists are not your usual damsels in distress though at first glance they Don’t appear to be that strong. Her women are fierce, independent women who are determined to be treated as equal partners in any relationship. This is especially true with Verity who owns the Tea Shop in this book. She would have to be strong to not be overwhelmed by a bully sheriff and a bull of a boyfriend!
Zoe Chant is on my Must Read Shelf of authors. The fact that most of her books are on my Kindle Unlimited subscription, makes it easy for me to reach for the next book in the series without any wait. Try her books, especially Bull in a Tea Shop! I believe you will really like it!
Where the main plot line was Darius dealing with the renegade Gargoyle, this one deals with a corrupt landowner attempting to swallow up an old silver mining town of Silvermine. Maddox has been wandering all over the country, trying to figure out his life, when he has a run-in with the corrupt sheriff of Silvermine, a dog leashed by Drucker to do his bidding. His original order was to kill Maddox, but the bull shifter escaped but barely, only to be found by the aunt of the young teenage girl whom Maddox had rescued from the sheriff. Verity, the girl’s aunt, takes him in as thanks, but that’s when he realizes she’s his physical/spiritual mate. She’s a blind tea shop owner whose being stalked by Drucker to sell her property, but her repeated refusals has only brought about tons of harassment by both the sheriff and Drucker. So what does Maddox do? Why not run for sheriff?
I found this book to be better than your usual of this particular ilk. (Haven’t we’ve seen TV overuse this template?) What the author has managed to do is to keep this story from always following the usual twists and turns to the point of absolutely boredom. At least she did a better job than that. Exposition was decent. Her characters’ touch with reality was better than most. Yes, we do have a rather blatant deus ex machina in the end, but it is better than most. I rather enjoyed the epilogue which was satisfying for this series. Still, I think there should had been better research on the topic of living as a lifelong blind person. I remember a few other books in the PNR genre who did a better job in establishing this norm. I wonder if the writer’s research included an actual, lifelong blind consultant? I don’t think so. It certainly didn’t feel like it.
I would have to say that the writer did get chronic injury and pain right. I would not recommend reading this book if you are going through an increase in osteoarthritic pain because of weather changes to the worse. I must have ached twice as badly because I couldn’t help but to empathize with Maddox’s chronic injuries.
Now my BIGGEST pet peeve with this book. It wasn’t the storyline itself. Is was the cover. MADDOX IS NOT A TWENTY-SOMETHING LIFEGUARD HOTTIE!!!!! I found the cover selection to be insulting to intelligent readers. Did Zoe Chant not think we’d read her book unless it had a much younger person representing Maddox on the cover? If she did, she is sorely misreading her readership. We all know Maddox is older and definitely more gruff and worn around the edges with visible injuries and TONS OF TATTOOS!!!!!!! This guy has more tribal-organized tats than what was described in the book. This is why I subtracted a star. Cover is like pizza. The crust is 70% of the pizza’s ratings. The cover is the hook, but this is ridiculous! I’ve never chosen a cover so far different from the reality of the story as this one appears.