A wolf after my own heart

Davidson returns to the delightfully bonkers paranormal world of Bears Behaving Badly for this hilarious second BeWere My Heart romance. Lila Kai's life has been a bumpy ride--so, though she is unaware of the supernatural, it gives her just a moment's pause when she hits a wolf on the way into her new home in Lilydale, Minn., only to get out of the decommissioned ambulance she's driving and see that there's no body. She's likewise unfazed when, moments later, two kids flag her down for medical assistance and lead her to an abandoned bear cub. Lila attempts to call animal control--but that's not how things are done in the predominantly shifter community of Lilydale. Instead, her strange ride lands her in the path of Oz Adway, a wolf shifter, accountant, and the newest field agent for the IPA, a shifter protection organization. Oz is immediately curious about Lila--and just as quickly smitten. As a series of strange occurrences plague Lilydale, Lila, Oz, and a small band of local foster children land neck-deep in potentially lethal weirdness. Davidson sandwiches her trademark laugh-out-loud moments between somewhat heavier beats and stream-of-consciousness inner monologues. The result is as thought-provoking as it is funny and guaranteed to entertain. Agent: Ethan Ellenberg, Ethan Ellenberg Literary. (Feb.)

A nerdy shifter and a quirky human become the spontaneous guardians of an orphaned bear-cub shifter in this paranormal romantic comedy. Lila Kai is used to being new in town, frequently uprooting her life when the mood strikes. For now, she's decided to settle in Lilydale, Minnesota, with dreams of owning her own home and continuing her business as a teddy-bear surgeon--she repairs broken or ripped stuffed animals for children. Moving day is already a stressful affair, but she manages to hit a wolf with her vehicle and stumble across an injured bear cub, which she then takes home. Lila isn't fazed by the cub's transformation into a 10-year-old girl named Sally Smalls or by a handsome, disheveled man named Oz ripping her screen door off its hinges. Oz Adway is a wolf shifter and accountant who has lofty dreams of becoming a caseworker for the Interspecies Placement Agency. Sally is his first case and is having a hell of a time with it; she doesn't believe her parents have died and is scared of entering the foster system. Oz and Lila frequently collide, using Sally as an excuse to see one another, until things start getting dangerous. After all, Lila is a human in a town full of shifters, and there are some who'd prefer it if she packed up and headed elsewhere. She's also an odd duck with a bit of a mysterious past, and her twee eccentricity quickly loses its charm. Oz is just as big of a goofball, tripping over his words whenever he's in Lila's presence. They clearly have fun with one another, but the romantic chemistry isn't there. The stakes on whether they should or shouldn't start a relationship never feel very high, as both are incredibly accepting and flexible. The novelty of caseworkers for supernatural children is the best part of the book. For a more patient reader. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.