This is the first book I've read from this author, and there was as a lot to like about it. It was a very diverse read in terms of characters. It was high on the paranormal suspense scale, which I really liked. It also had a different take on the paranormal shifter idea that I haven't read before, that was cool, as I really like shifter reads and when something different comes along that's always a bonus. The beginning of the book was a little dense and slow going as the author was world building this alternate modern day world, however she dropped these interesting little tidbits into it about the characters and the plot to keep the reader hooked. After about a quarter of the way in then the book started to pick up and really dig in. I really liked Joe as the main character, his character traits and flaws were believable. Neha, it took me a little to warm up to her as she didn't play off terribly conflicted about what she was doing, which made her a hard to believe character. The secondary characters are really intriguing and I'm really curious to see where this series go, I'll definitely be picking up the rest of the books to follow.

Big Bad Wolf is book one in the new Third Shift series by Suleikha Snyder. The story focuses on main characters Joe Peluso and Neha Ahluwalia. Neha is a junior associate who also has a background in behavioural psychology. She is given the task of analysing the recently incarcerated Joe who is on trial for a sniper attack on the local Bratva and the reasons why he did it. Mixed in with the story is the introduction to paranormals who have burst onto the scene during the Darkest Days which has now pitted humans and paranormals against one another.

There is a lot going on in this book (hence it being the first book in the series). Firstly, we have the will they/won’t they relationship between Neha and Joe. Then we also have the paranormals themselves and world building. Even though this book is set in 2016, it is a completely different world from the one we know and has huge urban fantasy vibes going on. We also have the story on how Joe became what he is and the background information on that.

Overall, this is a good start for a new series, with some insta love characters who go to and fro with their feelings, but they are still pretty likeable and help shuffle the story along. The world building is good if a little long, but the story does get there in the end. A different take on the werewolf genre, but still a good read.

ARC received for a fair, honest and sometimes long review. All opinions are my own. 😊

More of my reviews can be found on my blog: http://thehotmesslibrary.blogspot.com

At the beginning of this year, I reviewed Suleikha Snyder’s short story anthology, Prem Numbers, and said Snyder wrote “radical hope and face sitting.” I’m a fan of her work. She is not a low angst author. Her lovers are passionate. Her stories have all the angst and agony of love in a world that will punish people for looking the wrong way and loving the wrong way. She carves out pockets of safe space for her characters to love in and it feels like a respite from the world. In Big Bad Wolf, she takes all that and then dials it up to 11.

Imagine if the administration elected into power in November of 2016 had been more competent in their authoritarianism. In Big Bad Wolf, The United States has moved into an authoritarian, surveillance state dystopia, with a few veneers of democracy still remaining. On top of that, the public has only recently learned about supernaturals. The armed forces, of course, have been experimenting with turning soldiers into shifters for a while.

I’ve written, deleted, and rewritten this review so many times because I keep falling into the trap of retelling the plot as if I’m a toddler telling anyone who will listen about their favorite episode of Paw Patrol. The plot is a wild ride and Suleikha Snyder does a much better job of telling her story than I do. The basics: Joe was turned into a wolf shifter while he was a soldier. He thinks being a killer is all he has to offer and has turned vigilante. Neha is a psychologist turned lawyer, part of the team hired to defend Joe. They strike sparks immediately with verbal sparring, eye fucking and some serious pining. When an attack on Joe’s life sends them on the run, it’s all exploding lust and feelings. Outside of Joe and Neha, there is a whole underground world of shifters and magical beings waiting to come to light.

Snyder brings her love of soap operas to her world building in Big Bad Wolf. This is the first book in a series, so she is building a world and introducing characters and hinting at their future stories. The folks at Third Shift Security start to populate the novel and become intriguing characters on their own right without stealing focus from Neha and Joe*. There are a couple of significant fight scenes, which is not something I’ve read from Snyder before, and she writes it so well. The fight scenes solidified my 5 star rating, because she clearly communicates the violence and chaos while keeping in character growth and emotional epiphanies. When I finished I almost cried at how long I have to wait for the next book. I am anxious for more of this world and just from this book I can see so many stories I want to read. I feel like the direction this is going is the team working to put a world that has gone wrong to rights and creating a safer place for them to live and love.

Joe isn’t going to be everyone’s favorite kind of hero. He’s moody and keeps trying to do the right thing for Neha without listening to Neha’s opinions. Big Bad Wolf is very much a redemption story for him. I am bouncing in my seat waiting for Pretty Little Lion.

I received an advance reader copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

*Except for Finn. The vampire steals every scene he is in.

Book one in the new Third Shift series by Snyder is, as always with a new series, packed to the rafters with world-building and character establishment. Having said that, I really enjoy it when an author throws us right into the thick of it from the very first page. It's a firm thoughtful introduction of Joe and Neha. We're immediately intuned to who and what we think they are and definitely understand the predicament.

Big Bad Wolf has so many things going for it. It's a procedural meets-mafia-meets-supernatural combination. Its well flushed out and commands the reader's attention.

I can't wait for more.
~Tanja

DNF at 25% While the characters are interesting, the tone and language of this book is way over the top with continual F-bombs, and even worse phrases like this: "What about a supe? Ever done one of us? Had someone slide their fangs into you throat while they dick into you? Grabbed onto a wolf's ruff when he's nosing between your legs?" Yuck!!!! I understand the context but still...

Seriously? So not funny and smacks of some really deviant behavior for the average PNR reader. I rarely DNF a book once I accept the ARC; however, better that than writing a scathing review on Amazon. This book would not be going on to my review site either. I enjoyed the author's Tikka Chance On Me, but this one, not so much.

I really enjoyed this! I thought I would going into it, and thankfully it didn't disappoint me. At the start of this year I pretty much devoured the author's entire Bollywood Confidential series despite the fact that usually contemporary romance is not my romance flavor. They were great and so when I saw she'd done a paranormal I eagerly requested an ARC.
There was a lot to like. The first chapter left me a bit concerned that I wouldn't be able to pick up on all the world building information I was given but within another one or two I had slipped easily in and was hooked. I really enjoyed the world building once I began to soak it in. There was some ugliness in what was happening that feels unfortunately all too real this year, but it was good, interesting stuff to dive into. The more I learned about the world the more interested I was.
I loved the main characters. Neha was wonderful and I had no trouble seeing what Joe saw in her. I really enjoyed also the exploration of her family and background, because I have always been a sucker for characters grounded in their past and their connections.
Joe was an easy hero to fall for, and I loved, pitied, and even got a bit frustrated with him all without finding him too exasperating. He was somebody hurting a lot and wishing desperately that he had been a better man, while never seeming to realize that knowing what he had been and wanting to improve was the first step.
There was a bit of instant attraction in their initial encounters and that can tend to be kind of hit or miss for my tastes, but in the end I found it handled so deftly that I was rooting for them.
This was also an ensemble, really. I can't talk about it without mentioning the numerous other characters. I think that is part of the strength of the world-building in the end. There was a full cast of really intriguing side-characters and secondary romances that really made me want to see more of them. I -really- want to see more and I am glad that I believe this is a series because I think I am going to have to read them. I am dying to see more of really the entire cast.
The pacing was good, there was a briefly slow start but everything just ramped up and ramped up until the ending was just wild and wonderful, and I had to read huge chunks in a sitting to see what would happen next.
I think my only quibble with it is that while by the end Neha and Joe really worked for me, and in fact worked so well that I got the teeniest bit happily choked up, their attraction and love for each other started really fast. As I said that's a thing that tends to be hit or miss for me, and sometimes I am just very enamored of the idea of that one person who is just exactly right, but Neha took so many risks for Joe out the gate that I was worried about whether it would hit for me. In the end it did, and was just the immensely satisfying and enjoyable read I expected. It was a soothing thing to read a world where so much ugliness had happened and still find an end full of hope and people working to better it. Hope is one of the main reasons I read romance after all, so this was a much needed treat.

I wanted to enjoy this more because I loved Tikka Chance on Me by the same author. I really like her voice as a writer, and the texture the own voices perspectives adds to the NY set story, but this book could not win me over. Tikka Chance on Me was the motorcycle club romance that broke through what I thought was an unreadable genre for me. Not even Snyder could make angsty shifters and mafia work for me, alas. Readers who are already drawn to these kinds of books willl surely find something fresh in this book!

From a gorgeous new paranormal and multicultural world set in NYC, to interesting and angsty characters who may or may not be genetically modified, to the rush of a forbidden attraction, Suleikha Snyder's Big Bad Wolf starts off with a bang. I cannot wait to see how this whole series is going to unfold.

This was close to being 4 Stars for me. Lots of world-building sprinkled throughout the book to set up what I believe is a new series by Snyder. I found the world this book takes place in fascinating. I loved the side characters and I'm really hoping these characters get a book. The central couple fall for each other really hard almost immediately but there is barriers-the hero is in jail and the heroine is helping his criminal defense team. It was interesting watching these do dance around one another before finally giving into their attraction. Hot scenes.... I look forward to the next book.

Unfortunately i DNF this book at 25%

There's a huge lack of world-building, insta-love and insta-lust that really turned me off. There's way too much inner monologue and exposition, and nowhere near enough plot happening.

E-ARC from Netgally

I am not going to lie, I am the type of person who will pick a book solely amazing on the cover of the book. Yes, I know that I am not meant to judge a book by its cover because some beautiful covers are not the best or the not so pretty covers are amazing. I am sad to say that this book fell on the first option. I am a sucker for werewolf's esspeually if the cover has a hot dude on it but sadly this book didn't do it for me.

This book started out super promising but then took a turn for the worst. I really enjoyed the banter between the characters but I felt that at least 1/3 of the book was just a recap of what one of the main characters said and they were thinking about it. At first I thought it was a different way of writing but half way threw the book I was over it. It felt like something I would do in college when I was writing a paper and trying to meet a word count and I would start making quotas.

Trying to finish the book was just shy of pulling out teeth, and I couldn't even say that the ending was amazing. Yes it ended happy but the fact that it felt rushed was annoying. I say that it was rushed because the werewolf believed that he didn't deserve the girl and then the last 2 pages or so after the whole book of thinking he is bad for her he decides that he should end up with her. I felt like the author could have done more for the ending and how it could have been wrapped up.

I really wanted to like this book because come on... a werewolf romance is my jam but this book definitely didn't do it for me.

BIG BAD WOLF is fantastic. It's 2021, Trump's vision of America is well on its way towards coming to pass, and Neha Ahluwalia can't figure out why she's so attracted to Joe Peluso, a wolf-man she knows to be a killer. Despite growing up in a loving home with non-judgemental parents, she's willing to throw away her years of experience helping people as a psychologist and a lawyer to help Joe evade the mafiosos who want to kill him - and over the course of this very hot book, she realizes that perhaps it is because of the love and the lack of judgement she carries within her that she can make the choice to fight for someone so different. Worth it for the conversations about interracial relationships alone, it's also a very hot book.

Dnf @ 20% so no rating.
These are not my things: insta-lust, inner monologue galore and almost no world building. I really can´t buy their insta-attraction. Much less their romance.
The secondary romance seemed interesting but was hardly there.
Not for me.

***

Lo dejo al 20%, así que no puntúo.
Ni la lujuria instantánea, ni los monólogos mentales interminables ni el inexistente trasfondo de la historia son cosas que me gusten. Y soy incapaz de creerme su insta-atracción. Y mucho menos su romance.
El romance secundario tenía buena pinta, pero era muy escaso.
Definitivamente esta historia no es para mí.

A very sexy, exciting novel with the emotional heft of a story grounded in reality, despite all the, you know, shape shifters. Can't wait to read it again!

Joe Peluso was the monster in the closet, the creature you were warned about in fairy tales… and still, somehow, not the scariest white man Neha had encountered while doing her job.

Big Bad Wolf kicks off the Third Shift series set in an urban fantasy world full of paranormal and supernatural beings while incorporating a sense of current political times. This is much more of an ensemble piece, and I would say read this as a clear first-in-series world set-up, than a straight focus on one couple. The impetus that starts the story rolling is Neha Ahluwalia, a junior associate with a doctorate in behavioral psych, is brought in on a case her firm took involving Joe Peluso. She's there to analyze him and get him to talk, so that they can come up with a defense for why Joe killed six Russian Bratva members. Through Joe, the reader learns about the Apex Initiative, a secret military project where in Phase 3 Joe was brought in and injected with some kind of serum that gave him the ability to be a wolf shifter. Neha and Joe have instant heat between them and when an attempt to kill Joe happens, Neha goes on the run with him.

They were a ragtag crew who moonlighted fixing other people’s problems. Except the ragtag crew included some werewolves and vampires and sorcerers.

The first half has the reader mostly in the characters' heads, as through them we get a picture of the world they live in. We're told about The Darkest Day where a NSA internal memo was “accidentally” leaked and U.S. citizens learn about the existence of supernatural and paranormal beings. This leads to an increased military state where the creation of the Supernatural Regulation Bureau, Emergency Service Unit Watch, and use of drones overhead to monitor citizens to help them feel “safe”. This is countered a bit by the Sanctuary Alliance, a group of Sanctuary cities that claim to be safer for supernaturals; New York City is one of them and where this story is set. Third Shift Security is also a counter and a group of supernaturals, paranormals, and humans who go on missions and work to protect their brethren. Neha and Joe end up with them as they try to stay safe from officials trying to get Joe back under custody and what becomes a big part of the second half of the story, the Russian Bratva, who are also a clan of bear shifters, that wants to kill Joe in retaliation for the six he murdered.

So he had to watch himself. Wanting her was fine. But liking her? Caring about her? Actually being obsessed with her like he’d pretended to be the last time she was here…? Fuck, no. He had to draw a line. There was way too much to lose if he didn’t.

The second half picks up the pace with less internal monologues and more action. A second romance is highlighted between Danny Yeo, a NYPD detective working for Third Shift and Yulia Vasiliev, sister to the head of the bratva branch hunting Joe. While I thought the romance between Neha and Joe was more erotic in pacing and tone, instant and lusting, Yulia and Danny's relationship definitely captured my interest. We miss their initial meeting and come in months later where Yulia is trying to push Danny away for his own safety but still trying to give information to him about her brother and his activities. I thought these two had more of an emotional connection that I could believe in and therefore, more substance for me to engage with. Due to the worldbuilding taking over, Neha and Joe simply don't get much time together and when they are together, it was mostly about the sex. Neha was the better flushed out character with ties we get to see with her family, friends, and even job, helping to color in her personality. Joe's military career is discussed and how he suffers guilt from it, along with how close he was with a younger neighborhood boy named Kenny, who was murdered by the Russians and why Joe goes after them. Joe just never materialized into a fully solid character for me, I know he's not conventionally attractive and loves to give head (this was brought up over and over), which awesome, but I still needed him to feel fleshed out more.

This was not Neha’s world. She’d stepped through the Looking Glass when she crossed the threshold of Kamchatka. But she couldn’t go back. She’d signed on for this. She’d demanded participation . She was all in now. Because she’d made that call. Used the number Joe had given her… not to save herself, but to find her way back to him.

Ultimately, Neha and Joe's relationship failed for me; there wasn't enough emotional substance between them for me to buy Neha risking so much in the short amount of time she knew Joe. On the other hand, you will want to pick this up for the worldbuilding, I saw another reviewer compare this to Suzanne Brockmann, in terms of storylines, amount of characters and povs, I wholly agree. I think a comparison to Nalini Singh's Psy-Changeling series would also help readers grasp and anticipate the sheer amount of storylines and characters they're about to step into. While Neha and Joe's relationship, and maybe even Yulia and Danny's, looks to be wrapped up, there was a third romance between Neha's friend Nate, and two employees of Third Shift, Grace and Finn, that was left in the air. I would also mention that the author doesn't sprinkle in or is subtle with her views and political thoughts, if you're not ready for that kind of smoke to solidly be in your story, then this probably isn't the book for you. However, if you like some dry wit, a plethora of characters, weaving storylines, and worldbuilding that looks to be able to support a long running series, then you will want to pick up this first installment.

This was their adventure. Because the Third Shift was a shift that never really ended.

Joe and Neha in Big Bad Wolf
Neha is a court therapist helping build the defense of shifter, Joe, during his trial. Joe is wildly attracted to Neha and persuades her to break him out of jail. Mayhem with Shifters and the Russian mob ensues sending Neha and Joe on the run where Joe is taken prisoner again. Can Neha help to rescue him and will their love be able to thrive?
I liked the characters of Neha and Joe. They were both engaging and real, at turns funny and anguished. The secondary characters were satisfying and added depth to the plot. I do seriously think the book could have been shorter, however. There were many times I skipped over the internal angst of the main characters. It was just too long. Because of this I would give this otherwise 4 book a 3.
I do not buy 3’s for the library due to budget constraints.

Blog name: Storytellers by Marlou
Publication date: I will not be posting this review on my blog.

I tried to read it. I tried to like. But booooy, this was bad. At first I really liked the writing, it was someone telling a story about an intelligent woman who can and will kick your ass (verbally only perhaps, but still) and then it went downhill quickly... There were too many details. I usually complain that romance novels don't have enough details but out of the 35% that I've read at least half could've and should've been cut. There were also several other point of views that weren't making any sense at all to me.

This book is going in the proverbial trashcan to never be seen again. DNF for sure.

This isn't my favorite genre but the future world created by the author (though concerning when reflecting on how rights were being taken away) was interesting. Unfortunately I wasn't a big fan of the romance between the two main characters and I think that some of the other characters will be more fun to explore. I got bored with the whole "I'm bad for you/you're better off without me" and "you are a good person/I want to be with you" montage.

Kindly received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Diverse and one sitting read. The action never stopped. Hot and steamy love scenes, combined with super of all kind, mafia, unexpected romance and you come out with a winner. Neha is a lawyer attempting to get into the head of her client, Joe. He is charged with six murders but does not want to help himself. What follows is a plot that will keep you on your toes. Hopefully this is the start to a wonderful series.

3.5 stars for me.

I’m so torn on this one! I SUPER enjoyed the world Snyder has built for us in the first book of the Third Shift series - the secondary characters, the political backdrop, the diversity, and the Third Shift agency itself. Very fun found family vibes, lots of fun shifters and supernatural characters to get to know.

What I didn’t love and borderline hated was the central romance. 😬 I will say this: this book made me realize that I have a LEAST favorite romance trope, and it was in full force in this book. It’s the “hero thinks he’s too damaged/broken/bad for the heroine” and they spend the whole book arguing about it. It goes like this:

Hero: I’m bad
Heroine: No you’re not!
Hero: I am though, you don’t understand.
Heroine: You’re good enough for me!
Hero: I must protect you...from me.
Heroine: I can protect myself!!!
*commence sexy times*

But repeated like 10x throughout the whole book.

So, I hate this trope, I find it boring and melodramatic and did I mention so so so boring? It does not do it for me. But! The thing is! Maybe you love this trope!?! And that’s great, I hope you do!

I ended up skimming a lot through the central romance, because again, not my cup of tea, but I truly did read the rest with glee. If Finian Conlan isn’t the hero in the next book I will light something on fire because that vampire is SEXY and I am HERE FOR IT.

TL;DR: read it for the secondary characters and world-building - the central romance may or may not work for you.