Smiley by Laurann Dohner

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Vanni is furious when her fiancé tricks her into attending a conference where his father’s church is protesting the New Species Organization. She hates everything those vile bigots stand for. Vanni goes to the bar to cool off and ends up seated next to a handsome New Species. Things heat up fast when they are both drugged.

Smiley doesn’t want to believe the sweet human would dose them with the breeding drug. He’s willing to trust her and determined to save her life. He’ll hold her. Protect her. Offer up his body to distract them both from the pain. She is his female, even if she doesn’t realize it yet.

Smiley

Smiley and his Vanni!

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: ❤️💙💚❤️💖
Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘📙
World building: 🌏🌍🌏🌎🌍
Character development: 🤓😉🤨☺️🥰
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Solo Narration

The heroine: Vanni – she agrees to go for a romantic weekend with her fiancée Carl only to find out that they are staying in the hotel with his father. His father is a preacher who doesn’t believe in women wearing pants and talks them into attending a rally with him. It turns out to be him preaching hate about the New Species. Vanni hates the bigotry she has been hearing and won’t comment to the reporters that talked to her. She didn’t even recognize her fiancée and takes off to a local bar to drown her sorrows.

The Hero: Smiley – He was on security detail in California for a conference. The New Species Organization was promoting the expansion of the Reservation as a wildlife sanctuary. He was staying at the same hotel as Vanni and was down in the bar drinking a soda when the two of them meet. There were some members of the task force also in the bar, keeping watch on him.

The Story: While sitting in the bar talking, Vanni and Smiley get to know each other and are getting along nicely. They both all of the sudden start getting very hot. The bartender didn’t seem too happy to serve Smiley. Vanni started to feel dizzy and giggly, and she was saying things she wouldn’t normally say. Smiley soon figures out they had both been dosed with a breeding drug and they head to Homeland.

Some of the New Species think that it was Vanni that drugged both of them, especially after she sneaks away, and they find out she was at the hotel with the religious group that was demonstrating against the New Species. I liked the storyline, and the characters were terrific in this one. Smiley was a New Species with primate DNA, which is more rare than the ones with dog and large cat dna. I think this was the first book with a primate New Species as a main character.

This book was told via solo narration in dual points of view and was narrated by Vanessa Chambers. After this many books in the series, there isn’t much more I can say about her that I haven’t already, but she is a fantastic narrator and has been doing a bang-up job on this entire series. I hope to hear more from her as she is terrific.

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