Swim Deeper by T.S. Joyce
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Reporter, Bre Hayne, is on the hunt for a story. Finally, her big career break has fallen into her lap, and she has chance to get the scoop on one of the notoriously private shifters. Not many of them exist, but one Holt Lachlan has put an ad out for a mate, and Bre is up for the challenge. She’ll pretend to be interested, gather intel on him, and then scoot out of Uncertain, Texas just as fast as her old junker truck can speed her back to the news station. But the deeper into the story she goes, the more she realizes maybe Holt isn’t the one who is the monster. Maybe it’s her.
Swim Deeper
Alligator shifter, Holt Lachlan, is the center of an unfortunate legend. His family name has been tarnished by these swamps for generations, and he has to go outside of the town to try and find a mate. Desperate for something to occupy his inner animal, he meets up with a spunky beauty named Bre, and tells her the rules. The most important rule? Pretend he’s normal. Ignore the growling, don’t pay attention to his eye color, and definitely don’t go anywhere near the waters of Uncertain’s swamp at night. He’s protective of his territory, but the more he gets to know the bold and beguiling woman who has answered his ad, the more he thinks she just might survive his dark secrets…but will he survive hers?
Terrific alligator shifter story!
The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 🖤💙❤️💜🩵
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘📙📔
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌍🌎
Character development: 🙂🥰😎 😃😋
The heroine: Bre – she is a tv news reporter who wants her big break, so she can stop covering fluff pieces and start covering the real news. Actually, her cameraman and producer want it more than she actually does, though she is going along with their scheme to out one of the shifters. Shifters became known a few years back, but nobody knows who they are or much more than rumors about them, so when a shifter places an ad on the dark web for a human mate, they play along and Bre goes to his place with hidden cameras and all to get the story.
The Hero: Holt – he is very secretive and quite grumpy. He lives in the swamps deep in the southern United States, in a town called Uncertain, Texas (which by the way is a real town on the border of Texas and Louisiana, and it is known for its swamps). All the locals have heard rumors for generations of his family being shifters and they think he is a killer. Anytime a pet, livestock or anything like that goes missing, he is blamed for it and the townsfolk have never been shy about letting him know what they think of him. When his inner monster wants a mate and won’t give him any peace, he decides to advertise for a mate.
The Story: As soon a Bre arrives, Holt does his best to keep her at arms length or farther. He had an idea of having a mate, someone who would help him with his business, and would basically leave him in peace when he didn’t want her underfoot. Though Bre is a different story from the start. She is talkative, assertive and stands up for herself when his grumpy attitude frustrates her. Though he thinks he has to give her a wide berth from himself and make sure she doesn’t catch feelings because he isn’t able to feel like other people.
“If you’re lookin’ for some soft-hearted man who understands your feelings? It’s not me. I don’t do feelings. I don’t have them like other people, and the faster you understand that, the faster you can decide whether you’re in or out.”
I usually don’t like romance books where the heroine is a reporter for a few different reasons. Firstly because they are usually pushy and nosy, and I hate that in a heroine. Bre is all that but even so, I found myself liking her because she stood up for herself against a very grumpy Hero and she stood up for him against the townspeople. Secondly, I don’t like reporter stories because the reporter always seems to end up being caught in a huge lie, which also is the case with this one, but I didn’t mind so much since I really liked both characters and I liked the fact that there were other outside forces at work.
I tend to gravitate towards paranormal books that are outside the norm. Like different kinds of monsters and shifters. I rarely will read a wolf shifter book, because frankly they bore me. So, an alligator shifter was quite fun to read about, especially one where the Hero didn’t trust his inner beast not to kill his dog or Bre. He got bloodlust when he turned into a gator, which I thought was a great twist. This was a bit too short at only 217 pages, but it was good. I will most likely read the next book in this series which is about another gator shifter in Uncertain named Liam and the poachers out to get him.
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