I really enjoyed this debut story of the Alaska Untamed cozy series. Author Jensen sets a course that moves forward at a fast clip, and once I started reading, I didn’t want to stop until I knew whodunnit! Stacie Calder is a likeable wildlife expert who has an awesome job working as a tour boat guide in Juneau, Alaska. Her faithful and protective companion, Husky Sasha, is always by her side. When a passenger mysteriously goes missing on a tour, Stacie meets Liam Amauri of the Alaska State Troopers, Initial Response Section. He seems like a great guy, and they quickly grow close. Lack of clues prove frustrating until Sasha’s keen sense of smell leads the boat to a gruesome crime scene.

One by one, the author examines the potential suspects for readers eyes and she does a good job of camouflaging the true killer. A little over halfway through the book, I took a wild guess at the culprit and at the end, I was right.

I appreciated the beautiful Alaskan wildlife scenery mentioned on the tours. I learned several things I didn’t know before. I liked the different personalities of the tour boat crew, and Sasha shines in her wonderful part of the cast. I didn’t really care for how fast Stacie and Liam rushed into a physical relationship. There was a lot of repetitiveness of descriptions, also, since the boat toured the same route every time. Overall, a 4 Star read. I look forward to reading the next adventure on the ClemElk!

I honestly reviewed an unedited digital arc provided by NetGalley and Crooked Lane Publishing. All opinions are my own. Thank you.

Overall, this was a good book. Stacie Calder is a very enthusiastic boat tour guide in Alaska. She always brings her dog Sasha with her. Someone goes missing on the boat and, on another trip, is spotted down at the shore, dead. Stacie wants to help solve the crime, also wanting to save the family owners of the tour boats, and keep her job because she is so passionate about it. She loves to talk about the various wildlife seen while on tour. She is a pushy young lady, and alienates some of the crew and passengers with her constant questions and theories. She is helped by a hunky Alaska State initial Response officer. I was kept guessing up until the very end. I’d like to see Stacie’s character more teased out, and more descriptions of the area she is surrounded by. I look forward to the next book in this series. Hopefully the characters will be more fleshed. All in all, an enjoyable read, especially if you like animals and Alaskan wildlife.
Thank you to Netgalley, Ms. Jenson, and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book was sent to me on Kindle by Netgalley for review. It is a quick read with the main characters a tour guide in Alaska and her trusty cohort, Sasha. The setting is important to this story, along with the wildlife…it takes place on the tour boats, and the protagonist becomes involved in a murder investigation. She often crosses lines when she is trying to get answers. Although the story moves slowly to a conclusion, the journey is fun…I enjoyed this…

The title and cover really make you believe this will be some form of light hearted fun but it isn’t absolutely not it’s quite the opposite actually. This was pretty fun and interesting and I did have a lot of fun reading this. I love it when mysteries are done right and unfortunately the ones that are written to perfection are usually very underrated and it makes me sad but I’m also happy that I find invaluable gems on NetGalley. This was perfect and absolutely 5 out of 5 stars!

Thank you #Netgalley for the advance reader copy of Bear Witness by Lark O. Jensen in exchange for an honest review. Stacie Calder, an Alaskan tour guide, loves her job passionately. She takes her husky dog, Sasha, with her on the tours. A passenger seems to be missing from the tour boat. The Alaska state troopers are called. Stacie lives in Juneau and the tour boat departs and arrives from there. This was a fun book to read. I've been on a tour boat while visiting Alaska and it was exciting to see the wildlife. Ms. Jensen had me guessing to the very end on who the killer was. Thank you for an enjoyable book.

Alaska, law-enforcement, tour-boats, murder-investigation, naturalist, dog, friendship, cozy-mystery*****

Who knew that an Alaska tour guide could be a degreed wildlife naturalist? And I like the idea of an Alaska State Trooper Initial Response Section, a division that is just what is implies and then turns it over to the appropriate department. In this case the trooper and his sergeant need to investigate to find probative evidence to answer the old *was it a fall/jump/push* that got the victim dead in the water. The plot was kind of slow, but since that was what I was looking for today it was a big positive. The characters are well done without a lot of extraneous fluff, and I totally approve of the dog involvement. There were just enough plot twists, but not as many red herrings due to the locked room/limiting of space and suspects aspect. I liked this one, but I'm really looking forward to the next installment. Kind of like when I used to watch the TV show Alaska State Troopers. I hope the next one brings in a little more about the animals seen on the boat tour.
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Crooked Lane Books via NetGalley. Thank you!

Bear Witness by Lark O. Jensen, published by Crooked Lane Books, is the first book in the An Alaska Untamed Mystery Series.
Stacie is a tourguide on a tourboat in Alaska and she loves her job, loves the wildlife, loves Alaska.
When a passenger happens to vanish her interest is piqued.
BW is a very slow burn and it took me a few minutes to connect with the story. I liked Stacie's character, but I couldn't connect with any of the other ones. All in all an ok read and because I'm a huge fan of everything Alaska, 3,5 stars.

A solid whodunit. This book grabbed my attention from the first and kept it. Love the characters! They are fun and very likable. My first in this series but certainly NOT my last. Already have purchased the eight previous ones. Call me Happy! Thanks #netgalley and #BacklitPR for the eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are mine.
#netgalley #BacklitPR
#BarbaraBarrett
#CourtesyCall

This story takes place in the Alaskan panhandle, with Stacie Calder working as the naturalist on a wildlife tour boat when a passenger disappears. I was excited to read Bear Witness because both the setting and the main character's job are pretty unique compared to other mysteries. Unfortunately, the book was a big disappointment, and I was unable to finish after reading about halfway through.

The plot has good potential, but I found the writing weak, with very poor character development and unrealistic behavior. Brief, dull descriptions of the extraordinary location and wildlife give no sense of the wonder and enthusiasm Stacie claims to feel for them. There is a lot of repetition of ideas and unimportant information.

The investigation and action slow to a crawl pretty quickly. Stacie spends most of her time speculating over and over in her head about a few vague motives, and one bizarrely unrealistic idea, while neither she nor Liam, the state trooper, look into very basics questions, like when the passenger disappeared, how the passenger went overboard, or why, on a boat full of tourists, no one saw anything.

Halfway through, only one tangible clue, which is ignored, and no evidence had been presented. I was deeply bored by all the speculation without substance, saw no hope of things picking up, and couldn't force myself to read any more.

I received a free advanced copy via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

#BearWitness #NetGalley

Wildlife expert Stacie Calder has her dream job as tour director on a family owned cruise ship company in Alaska. Her husky puppy gets to work with her onboard as well and she likes her bosses and coworkers. Then a passenger goes missing and then his body is found. Stacie decides to investigate to keep the cruise ships and her employment going. The main character is likeable and doesn't do anything foolish, but I found it odd that an Alaskan state trooper would ask for her help and pursue an intimate relationship while the crime was slowly investigated. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

The pace is very slow and that caused me to annoyed quickly. If felt as though somethings were being repeated several times. With that said I really enjoyed the setting, the MC Stacie was great along with her pup Sasha.
#BearWitness #NetGalley

Bear Witness was a fun read. It reminded me of Paige Shelton's Alaska Wild series. This story takes place in the town of Juneau, Alaska. Most of the story is on the tour boat ClemElk owned by Ingrid and Curt Clementoses's company Clemtours. Stacie Calder, a tour guide on the ClemElk, is the main character along with her huskie, Sasha.. The rest of the characters add to the mystery of the story. When on the tour boat a man Shelton Truit who use to work on the ClemElk and is now planning to have his own business of tour boats to compete against Clemtours is found missing and later murdered. Liam Amarug an Alaska State Trooper is assigned to finding who killed him. He gets Stacie to help him with interviewing all the crew as well as Hanson Horowitz, Shelton's future partner. The story leads the reader wondering who in the crew did the murder. Not until the end does the reader find out who murdered Shelton Truit and why.

The relationship between Stacie and Liam starts to bloom in this story. Bear Witness is the first of this series. I look forward to another adventure of Stacie and Liam in this series.

Thank you NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for this ALC

The title, suhject and book cover all appealed to me. Being from Alaska and loving mysteries plus nature I thought this would be a great match.

However by chapter two the book was clearly not for me. The description of the scenery, the development of the characters and the plot layout were lacking..Why you ask?

There was unnecessary repetition that made it cumbersome. Obviously the character loves animals, as does the author, for instance. The plot needed a hook in the beginning, something to make me read on, to be intrigued.

I could not lose myself in the book, the characters, the scenery. The characters and the scene were one-dimensional and when the character speaks directly to the reader it reminds the reader they are on the outside, as a yoyeur of sorts. I wanted to be there instead, totally immersed in that time, that place, that world.

Perhaps if the scenery was described in more detail, I wanted more absorption, colors, smells, sounds, tastes, for instance, iI would have enjoyed the story. Less cliche and more truth. It read more like a travel brochure for an Alaskan tour than a literary work of mystery.

It just wasn't for me.

Stacie Calder is a naturalist living the dream in Alaska leading boat tours. While out on a tour, Stacie notices that one of their passengers hasn’t been around for awhile and they start searching for him only to find him dead in the water. With the captain and Stacie being on the suspect list, she knows she has to figure it out before they get back to the docks. Otherwise the killer may get away with murder and strike again, this time sending Stacie to sleep with the fish.

This first entry was a bit slow for me, but I often find that sometimes reading a new author I tend to feel this way, but then the next entry knocks it out of the ballpark. That said, I plan to read the next entry in this series and see how I feel after that. Don’t let my hesitancy stop you from reading it, because the scenery alone is well worth the read.

Stacie is a wildlife tour guide on a 7 hour tour in Alaska. When someone gets murdered and the captain gets framed she steps in to help him by asking questions. Needless to say that doesn’t make the murderer happy. Good cozy mystery. Easy read.

This is an intriguing cozy mystery that I was interested in reading. Stacie loves leading tours in Alaska, and teaching others about wildlife is just about her favorite thing to do.
Her dog Sasha is always by her side, which adds cuteness to the story.
When Stacie notices a frequent passenger hasn't been seen for hours, she alerts the Captain and a search goes underway.

The story started out interesting but as it progressed, it became a bit stagnant and I found myself pushing through reading it, but I quickly lost interest.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for selecting me to read an advanced copy of this book.

#BearWitness #NetGalley

I loved the setting of this book! Sasha was my favourite part.

The pace was very slow and I just couldn't get into this book.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Crooked Lane Books through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. Thank you, Crooked Lane Books.