Rating: 3.5 Stars

Publisher: Emory Winters

Genre: Gay Paranormal Romance

Tags: Contemporary, Brother’s Best Friend/Friends-To-Lovers, NOT Mpreg, Omegaverse, Series, Shapeshifters (Fox), Small Town

Length: 233 Pages

Reviewer: Cindi

Purchase At: Amazon

Blurb –

Welcome to Foxwood Hollow. In a world of fox shifters sits a small, quaint town where everyone knows your business. Often stifling, always safe, and forever a place to call home.

Dylan
Axel is the love of my life; he just doesn’t know it yet.
Ten out of ten do not recommend spending your formative years pining after an alpha who’s your brother’s best friend. But alas, here we are.
My only solution is to leave Foxwood Hollow and start afresh. So what do I do when I have no choice but to return home, only to realise all of those years and miles haven’t doused the flame?

Axel
He’s your best friend’s little brother. He’s your best friend’s little brother.
It was a mantra I’d repeated to myself for years, ever since my brain had shifted from omega smells good to omega smells like mine.
I’m happy for Dylan when he leaves Foxwood Hollow to chase his dreams. I always knew he was destined for a life larger than this little town can offer him. But I feel his absence like a gaping chasm, and the silence that follows has my alpha instincts going into overdrive.
When Dylan finally comes home, a lot has changed. But the soul-deep longing is as present as ever.
Can I really let him slip through my fingers again?

Review –

Axel was the love of my life. He just didn’t know it yet.

I read this book because I want to read the 2nd one, A Daddy For Cooper. I figured it would be necessary. I wasn’t wrong. Cooper plays a big part in A Den Mate For Dylan. Before I even downloaded the book, I checked everywhere I could to ensure it wasn’t Mpreg. Others in the series may be, but there were no pregnant omegas or baby foxes in this one, though Dylan does mention being on birth control. I’m not against Mpreg, and have read a few over the years, but it’s simply not what I’m in the mood for at the moment.

This starts with part 1, with the first chapter being when Dylan was thirteen. Each subsequent chapter in part 1 is another year, another age. I almost DNFd for that reason. I don’t like flashbacks, especially when they’re several chapters long. I pushed myself to keep going.

Dylan, a fox omega, has been in love with his brother’s best friend, Axel, an alpha, his whole life. Axel is only two years older, but Dylan is still the ‘kid brother’ of Cooper. Long story short, part 1 is a lot of Dylan pining for his brother’s friend, and Axel going from being all big brother like to acting like a jealous ex when Dylan started dating others. He was that way even with a girlfriend, Lauren.

That relationship lasted four years before it ended.

Dylan went away for college at eighteen, making a point in not seeing Axel even one time in three years. He had a relationship, several friends-with-benefits, and was able to live his life without having to see Axel constantly with his girlfriend.

Then we get to part 2, present day, and we’re able to finally get inside Axel’s head, not just Dylan’s.

Dylan comes home after graduating college and everything changes. Axel is a bit of a jerk the first time they do see each other, but really, who could blame him? It was obvious that Dylan had been avoiding him. Worse, major things had happened in his life that Dylan’s brother didn’t tell him about, which was very hurtful to Axel because he thought Dylan simply didn’t care. All that is settled quickly, they end up working together, and all is good… kind of. Dylan still has his crush, and we learn that Axel is secretly in love with Dylan, and has been for years. He was never able to fully commit to his now ex-girlfriend, and Dylan is why, even if he didn’t realize it at the time.

I’d known Dylan most of my life, and our relationship had never included cuddling… especially not with my boner pressing into his back.

When they do finally get together, it’s a very sweet scene. I loved it, but then I was like, what now? It happens relatively quickly after Dylan comes back home, so what was left other than lots and lots of sex? Honestly, not much. There was a lot of nest making and heats and ruts, which obviously led to a whole lot more sex. I feel like the author should’ve dragged things out a little longer before putting them together as a couple. After it happened, the story could’ve easily ended. There was very little character building. There was some for Dylan early on, but almost nothing for Axel.

At times I felt like I’d been dropped into another book I haven’t read. Things were said about secondary characters’ lives that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me because there was no story behind it.

I liked Axel and Dylan together for the most part, though I would’ve liked them more as a couple had I been inside Axel’s head much earlier. I liked Cooper, who was perfectly fine with his brother and best friend getting together. There was no waiting for the other shoe to drop with him. He knew and approved. I’ll be reading Cooper’s story after I finish this review.

They’re all fox shifters, but there’s very little shifting.

The story was fairly cute until it got to the role-playing, which I found to be not sexy at all. There’s a ‘spa’ scene that was really quite silly. I don’t always mind role-playing in books, but none of it worked for me with Dylan and Axel.

One thing that I know will bother some readers is that both guys are with others in the book before they get together. I had no problem with that because the sex wasn’t actually on page, though the girlfriend talk was too much at times. I was actually happy to see Dylan enjoying life and not sitting around pining for Axel. He still had the crush, but he wasn’t sitting around being miserable while Axel lived his life away from him. Had he remained a virgin until he eventually got with Axel, it wouldn’t have worked for me. At all. Even with them being with others before, they both did save some firsts, which I thought was nice.

Overall, the story was sweet, with very little angst. I did like both Axel and Dylan, though Dylan came across as immature more often than not.

Off to read Cooper and Patrick’s story.

My first by this author.