Hair of the Dog

Since the authors of 'Hair of the Dog', Ashlyn Kane and Morgan James, may not be familiar with me as a reviewer, I'm going to let them in on a well known fact for anyone who reads my reviews. I freaking love shifters. Shifters of all kinds, although wolves and large cats hold a special place in my heart, but I can vouch for a bunny shifter I met and lost my heart to once. The more original the storyline, the more invested I am, though I still love the \"normal\" lore. With all of this said, let me be the first to tell you, I really liked this book. The writing is great, the characters are complex, unique, and interesting, and, well, the sex is intense. What more could a girl ask for who likes her men to be a little hairy and toothy?
\"'You can't be serious.' Could he? 'I was bitten by an escaped convict werewolf? That's the line you're going with? Really?'
'No. He was a psychiatric patient. Sort of. And we prefer lycanthrope, or lycan.'
Oh, so it was a crazy escaped were - sorry lycanthrope. That...really didn't make Ezra feel better. 'Listen, buddy,' he began, 'you need to lay off the HBO.'\"
Thanks guys, I was happily reading along and then I snorted water out of my nose. People always have varying responses to discovering they've been turned into a lycan, and I never get tired of hearing them. The authors have built a very interesting world with some factions of the government and the CDC being aware of lycans. The CDC Center for Lupine Research is where Ezra ends up with Callum Dawson, PhD, and alpha lycan, for Callum to test Ezra's blood. It appears that the escaped lycan who bit Ezra carries a disease they've named ARD which messes with hormone levels and causes infected lycans to go violently crazy. This means that Ezra has to return to Callum's pack to stay for the next three weeks until Ezra changes again so he can be monitored. Good for Ezra since he'll be around other lycans and can learn. Bad for Callum as he's responding in ways he doesn't want to, because Ezra is his fantasy come to life and apparently Callum's wolf thinks so too.
The next few days have Ezra trying to settle into pack life while dealing with some changes his body is undergoing. Ezra is also not too thrilled to discover he is one of the many beta members of the pack and is, apparently, a very natural submissive. Ezra volunteers to help Callum at the lab as his unofficial research assistant, mainly to give Ezra something to do as he's going stir crazy. Callum needs someone to research missing persons and Jane/John Does to see if any of them might be ARD victims not known about yet. This also gives Callum the opportunity to help train Ezra in things most born lycans learn during puberty, i.e., to control his responses to scents and to learn to not always immediately follow every suggestion from a lycan with alpha strength. Luckily for Ezra he also gets \"Myth Debunking 101\" and it was interesting to see the lore these authors built this world upon.
This was a fascinating shifter book. The intrigue and mystery, so to speak, surrounding the \"disease\" ARD was well done and kept me interested mainly due to not being predictable and there was good action adventure. The world building was very unique within this genre and definitely held my attention. Last, but not least, the love story was extremely satisfying. So, in a nutshell, I really enjoyed it and was significantly impressed with both authors.
NOTE: This book was provided by Dreamspinner Press for the purpose of a review on Rainbow Book Reviews.

This book was more of 3.5 stars book then a solid 4 stars. While I really liked the two MCs and the storyline I thought the bad guy was a little too obvious. Ezra was just too cute for words with his natural submissive side that drove Callum crazy. Together they were a great couple and not just in bed, but in every aspect of their relationship. The secondary characters were well written with some pretty funny lines. I would love to read more books with these characters. Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys a little humor with their shifters.

I just finished Hair of the Dog and it was a delicious take on the aspect of werewolves in modern society. Ezra wakes torn clothes and covered in blood with a bite to his shoulder.Callum Dawson shows up and convinces Ezra that he is a werewolf. The dominate wolf brings Ezra to his lab and then to his pack. This was first part of the book was a bit hard to get into but after Callum intoduced Ezra into the pack the action started. I loved the plot of Ezra working for the CDC and hunting for origins of a lycan epidemic. I also thoughly enjoyed the tension between Callum and Ezra.
Without giving to much away this is a mystery and a love story rolled into one. I highly recommend this story! If you like Bradly Bradford's book you will love these authors books also.

Over all a good read. Very enjoyable story line with intriguing characters. I definitely advise reading it! An original take on lycanthorpy, and I really loved the whole alpha pheromone angle. The inner war with Callum trying to decide if Ezra's attraction to him was genuine or a result of his new paranormal nature gave more depth to the male Alpha character.
That being said, there were a few issues I had with the book. Ezra became a werewolf the night of his father's wake. The following morning, he thinks to himself about all the things he must do that day to settle the estate. Then Callum shows up and he essentially forgets he ever had a father. I think he is only mentioned once later on in the book and just in a sort of \"Oh, I forgot my dad died\" kind of thing. He also lost his mother and developed some sort of fear of hospitals which at times seems like it should lead to panic attacks and others, is simply forgotten. These feel like things that should have either been fleshed out or just left out.
I don't want to seem like I'm attacking much in this book, but this last is my pet peeve of paranormal books. IF we assume a human shifts into a wolf, there is no reason his knees should bend the other way! A wolf, and all canids, have knees that face the same way as a humans. What the authors are misconstruing for knees are in fact the wolves' ankles! It just shows a lack of general anatomy knowledge. The same for those stories that have lion shifters who's human has cat slit eyes. Large cats, and even many of the small varieties, have round pupils. It is a better design for night vision. I do wish people would actually look at a picture of the animal they base their books off of.