Shape-shifting social workers... This book just wasn't for me. I had to suspend reality too much and the main characters didn't draw my interest. I have enjoyed MaryJanice Davidson's book in the past (the Undead series is a lot of fun), but this just wasn't for me. I am sure that there will be fans of this new series by Davidson all over the place, however. There is a strong audience for paranormal romance!

I loved this book. The main characters Annette and David have an exciting relationship developing. Annette is a social worker who takes care of her charges come hell or high water. The story is exciting and funny. I came to really love the characters in this story. It is a must read for any fans of Mary Janice Davidson. I loe her snarky characters who make you laugh and love them.

Susan

DNF 21%

I really wanted to like this book because I love shifter romances and the idea of foster bear helping orphaned young shifters really appealed. But the writing of this book is hard to follow with many parenthetical interjections and lines breaking funny as several thoughts occur simultaneously. It made it difficult for me to follow what was going on and keep track of the scene. I also felt like I was plopped into a world without enough background to know who was who and know the history between the characters, which added to some of my frustration and disinterest. A lot of potential, but in the end this just didn’t work for me.

This is a typical MJD book. Fun, quirky, good characters and a great story. And I still don’t understand why you must use a certain number of characters in a review. Being verbose is not necessary to review a book.

Very different than Mary Janice Davidson's other books, but it does not disappoint. Shifters living and working in a world with non shifters/stables. Focused on child/cub protection. This book is full of humor, sarcasm and banter. The characters are funny and quirky each with their own backstory, that is slowly unravelled in the book. There is a lot of sexual tension and build up. There is not as much sex in this book as there is in some of her others, but it is well worth the wait.

DNF 35%

I love paranormal romance, especially shifter romance. When I saw this book I couldn’t resist requesting an ARC copy of it. Sadly this book was not for me. To start with, the writing style was very choppy and rough. It made it really hard to follow conversations and scenes. My next issue was that we are just thrown into this complicated world with multiple characters but get no backstore. It was very confusing and at 35% I was still confused about what was going on in the world and with the characters, which is why I am DNF this book. If I don’t understand what is going on or the world by 35% then there is a problem.

*ARC provided by Netgalley for an honest review.*

DNF
Oh my, I love anything shifters books and I love the idea shifters being in the real world. I got so confused with the beginning of the story, I didn't know if Pat was a female or male or if they are gay. I had to read that part again. Sorry, I lost interest as I continued to read, I don't get the humor in the book, wished I did. This book wasn't for me. Maybe others will enjoy this more.

Bears Behaving Badly is a new look at shape shifting. Instead of the usual wolves, we learn about bears. And raptors. And some wolves. We meet Annette, who works for the shape shifter equivalent of Child Protective Services. Her dedication to protecting abandoned cubs sets the stage for this story, which has plenty of action, as well as some steamy love scenes. The plot has several twists and turns and I admit that I was completely surprised when the "evil mastermind" was revealed. Plus, great dialogue with some laugh out loud moments make for a great read.

*I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.*

DNF @ 10%

Alright, I'm not rating this one either because the problem is 100% with me.
Before this I had never read a book by this author because I wasn't sure on if the writing would be for me. I can't turn down a new series with shifters though-- my current weakness.
The thing is, I was right to be wary. The humor isn't funny to me and there are so many parenthesis used. I was getting confused left and right about what was going on.

This is a huge bummer because I adore the concept. I love shifters in the modern world with real jobs-- here they are like social services trying to help the kids out.
On this note though... I also thought there would be a mystery here, but it is obvious who the bad person is, even if we don't know why. So, that took some fun out of it, for me.

So, in the end, totally just not a book for ME, but if this hits someone's type of humor I"m sure they'll love it.

As always with MaryJanice Davidson I fell headlong into the world she built for us. I could not put the book down from start to stop as I had to find out what happened (and I still want more)!! I cannot wait for the next book to come out.

As I think another person said I think if anything could be said against the book is that I would have liked some more backstory on the characters? I kind of felt like I walked in the middle of act 1 - if that makes sense. Did not make me like it any less, just took me a chapter or two to get up and running.

Now I want the second book, tomorrow if possible??

Annette Garsea works for a very secret social services agency. She is a werebear shifter and she works among the shifter population. Someone is stealing babies, babies who are abandoned or for some reason no one wants. She has rescued two such shifters, Dev and Caro. Caro has become selectively mute to deal with the trauma that was inflicted upon her. Dev is a wise-cracking, barely civilized teenager. What is happening to these babies? And then there's David Auberon, investigator. Annette and David are having a hard time keeping their hands off each other, but neither one of them has time to spare for a relationship. Author of the Betsy Taylor, vampire queen series, Davidson presents her take on shifters. It is a charming read and the characters are pleasant.

I have always liked Maryjanice Davidson. This was a fun quick read. Annette is a case worker in the CPS for shifter kits. She is investigating a brutal attack by a young shifter werewolf on an adult werewolf. Her investigation involves missing shifter kids and a sinister ring that has been diverting kids from foster care for a nefarious purpose. An independent contractor, David, who she has had the hots for for a while, has offered to help her. This book was a lot of fun and I especially liked Annette’s roommate Pat. It was not as snarky as I’d have liked but it was still fun. My one complaint is with the title; I don’t think it is a good fit for this story. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

These social worker bear shifters give the term "mama bear" a whole new meaning! Bestselling author MaryJanice Davidson is back with this brand-new paranormal romance series featuring a foster care system for at-risk shifter babies and teens.

DNF at 25% this was awful, andll over the place. I did not enjoy this one, well what I read of it. I think if i had readt his at a differenttime in my ife i may have enjoyed it.I love shifter bears too. Fans of the author wll really enjoy this possably. I hope other will enjoy this.

A champion for at risk you weres, Annette the werebear is on a mission to save two teens from a crime syndication that is out to silence the teenagers. She just needs a little help from her odd pack of friends and the delicious werebear David, who she is definitely not dating despite what the rumors are saying.
At first, this book was a little difficult to get into. I found myself loving this book though. The characters are weird and charming. This is definitely for fans of Shelly Laurenston!

DNF @ 25%

This book wasn't for me, although I love a bear shifters book, I found the writing style of this very difficult.

Netgalley review
I wanted to like this book more than I did. It’s a solid book, and to be honest the only complaints I have are small ones—more personal preference than an actual plot hole/failing of the book. I may as well lead with the complaints, rather than blundering through an explanation of what I mean with no examples.
The most annoying thing (in my opinion alone, etc etc) was the fourth wall breaks of the characters commenting on the tropes they were fulfilling—matchmaking roommate/friend, flirting under fire, constant miscommunications and more. While the tropes themselves are fine and to be expected in a book of this type (urban fantasy/paranormal romance), the incessant commentary on it by the characters spoiled the fun and made it seem cheesy. Again, I realise that this sort of thing is entirely up to personal preference, but it became a bit tiresome. In a similar vein, the characters being amused to the point of commentary every time another character said something witty, or acted irrationally, irritated me a little. It almost read like a laugh track for the novel, and I enjoyed the book less for it.
Other than that, I did enjoy Bears Behaving Badly. Annette has great chemistry with every character and I appreciated that her and David were both fully fledged people and that neither of them were diminished by their budding romance. The world of Stables and Shifters was well-developed, and the idea of a social worker for shifter children is a great concept to introduce readers to a new world.
Bears Behaving Badly has a well-developed cast of characters, and the various social groups surrounding Annette and David did a great job of naturally revealing facets of their personality. Nadia and even Bob added little touches of realism to the book. Likewise, Dev’s reactions to Annette (and his nickname for her) showed her character without the need for boring exposition. Dev was one of my favourite side-characters in the book, and I loved the interplay he had with adults in the book. I look forward to reading future books with him in it, and presumably seeing him grow up alongside Carla, with Mama Mac, Annette and David weighing in.
Oz’s backstory was fascinating, but I wish it had been included a little earlier in the book. The plot was interesting, if a little oddly paced, and while the mystery was intriguing, I think it was solved very quickly at the end of the book, leaving Annette and David just wandering from place to place for the majority of the book. I have no issue with that, and likely enjoyed it less than normal only because of the complaints that I have already mentioned, that resulted in the banter that drives this novel not being to my taste.
Pat was interesting, and I was glad of the representation he brought to the book. There were several instances of the book being respectful of various, less represented identities (Annette even mentions grey-A people, and asexual people of any type are rarely mentioned in fiction). I also appreciated the representation of various kinds of family—adopted, found and otherwise—within the book.
Overall, Bears Behaving Badly was a solid book, with an interesting world and a great cast of characters. The tone wasn’t to my taste, but it did remind me of books that I thoroughly enjoy (the earlier Hollows books by Kim Harrison and Shelly Laurenston’s Pride series most notably), so I’m confident that this is something that could well change in future, and I will definitely be keeping an eye out for future BeWere My Heart books to see if this is the case. I think this book would be a good match for fans of Molly Harpers Naked Werewolf series or Shelly Laurenston’s Pride and Pack books.

D.N.F. (I did not give a rating on my review via Goodreads, since I did not finish this title.)

I didn't get very far into this story when I put it down in exchange for another book. This is my first read from this author, so it might be a writing style dilemma for me but I just could not get into it despite having a hankering for a paranormal romance. The writing was descriptive, but it was more of a telling than a showing. Right from the start readers are thrown into this shifter/human world with multiple characters and no backstory. It was difficult to keep track of it all and have any sort of initial connection to the characters. I also didn't understand the fact that the hero and heroine had a clear attraction towards each other as the book is told from their alternating POV's, but anytime that a side character mentioned that attraction or a chance of hooking up it was forcefully denied. The heroes dead mother's voice in his head was a little odd as well, but I'm sure that is explained later on. This did seem to have a heavy helping of mystery and a dollop of action, though not enough to interest me to keep reading. However, if you're a fan of light romances featuring shifters or a long-time reader of this author, you might want to give this book a shot yourself.

Well this was a quirky, fun read about shifters living amongst us. I loved that the lead was a rather unusual type of heroine as bear shifter Annette is what I can only describe as a social worker determined to protect young shifters. She's constantly worried about a certain Fox shifter and now he's apparently related to a rather dangerous and mute Wolf. Add in the fact that everyone is constantly pushing her towards David an investor that works with the department and poor Annette really has a difficult job on her hands.
I found this to be very enjoyable with an interesting storyline and very amusing characters. Annette and David clearly fancy the pants off each other but neither one of them realises that the attraction is mutual and the author really had fun with their budding relationship. Yes this was fun but it's not exactly light because there are dark undertones in this story but I think it's the zany characters that essentially made it so readable.
This voluntary take is of a copy I requested from Netgalley and my thoughts and comments are honest and I believe fair

This is my first time reading a book by MaryJanice Davidson, so I went in with no expectations. A bear shifter social worker who helps young shifters find safe homes and a scruffy PI shifter who find themselves teaming up to stop a shifter trafficking ring , how could I resist a plot like that.


"she wasn't going to hug her crush while on the floor of a filthy parking garage in the wake of their attempted murder. Right? Right."

I wanted to love this book so much and while there was many things I did love, I struggled really hard with the writing style and layout / pacing. I don't know what word to use to describe it (my brain is failing me) but it didn't read smoothly in my opinion. It switched to different point of views at the start of chapters but it didn't label whose it was. Not that it was hard to figure out whose POV I was reading but some of the characters had very similar thinking patterns so it would take me a few lines before I would think "Oh now it's <<insert character name>> POV 💡". Also, while all the characters seemed to have a good sense of humor it a had a run on 'Gilmore Girl-esque' way of rambling and not in a good way. The story as a whole was a bit all over the place, one of the characters actually says towards the end " we basically ad-libbed the last four days" and it couldn't have been more spot on.


Now for what I did really enjoy about Bears Behaving Badly. It had so much potential. The overall plot was exciting. I liked that all the characters were unique in their own way and made the story for me. There was such a wide range of shifters in this world - the usual ones like werewolves and foxes to raptures and a jackal. Werebear Annette is bada**, a bit spastic, food obsessed , and highly protective of young shifters. PI David is a bear shifter who is gruff on the outside but a softy in the middle with a sweet tooth. Their romance was a back and forth, will they / won't they vibe, where they thought the other didn't want them and they didn't feel worthy. There is a good amount of sexual tension throughout that comes to an explosion at the very end of the book with lots of dirty talk and delicious intimacy.

"Oh! You were referencing our bloodlust fueled mack session."
"Aw. It sounds super romantic when you put it like that."

In the end Bears Behaving Badly was good but not the writing style I enjoy. However, I would be interested in reading future books in the series because I quite enjoyed the characters themselves.

I voluntarily read this ARC for an honest review
All thoughts and opinions are mine

This isn't my normal genre but I came across this author some years ago and I love to indulge myself in her books when I can

This is fabulous - first in a new series from the author and was really happy to have the opportunity to read this - she never disappoints !!

Thoroughly enjoyed