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Northern Exposure
Even in Grundy, Alaska, it’s unusual to find a naked guy with a bear trap clamped to his ankle on your porch. But when said guy turns into a wolf, recent southern transplant Mo Wenstein has no difficulty identifying the problem. Her surly neighbor Cooper Graham—who has been openly critical of Mo’s ability to adapt to life in Alaska—has trouble of his own. Werewolf trouble.
For Cooper, an Alpha in self-imposed exile from his dysfunctional pack, it’s love at first sniff when it comes to Mo. But Cooper has an even more pressing concern on his mind. Several people around Grundy have been the victims of wolf attacks, and since Cooper has no memory of what he gets up to while in werewolf form, he’s worried that he might be the violent canine in question.
If a wolf cries wolf, it makes sense to listen, yet Mo is convinced that Cooper is not the culprit. Except if he’s not responsible, then who is? And when a werewolf falls head over haunches in love with you, what are you supposed to do anyway? The rules of dating just got a whole lot more complicated. . . .
—New York Times bestselling author Teresa Medeiros
From Eloisa James's "READING ROMANCE" column on The Barnes & Noble Review
Most women would agree that it's preferable to be labeled a goddess than "hardheaded." It's true that Cat Stevens celebrates his hardheaded woman -- she'll "make me do my best" -- but Elvis Presley has a different take, calling her "a thorn in the side of man." Love songs aside, a man with a "head like a rock" is not high on my list of ideal spouses. However, these five novels make a strong play for the desirability of a stubborn partner. The problem is that a hardheaded person is likely to have planned out his or her life without including you. And he or she is unlikely to want to change direction.
Julia London's A Light At Winter's End is a complex and heartbreaking novel about a country western songwriter, Holly Fisher, whose sister has a breakdown and dumps her baby on Holly's doorstep. Heathergraduated valedictorian, married the perfect man, and wears diamonds and heels. Holly, on the other hand, has stubbornly kept writing country music her entire life, in the face of her family's conviction that she's a drifter and a failure. Holly's career is finally taking off when she has to move to the country to take care of the nephew she hardly knows. Her neighbor turns out to be a lonely cowboy, Wyatt Clark, who knows more about babies than she does, since his wife left him, taking their child. Together Holly and Wyatt forge a sweet, tentative, and joyful family -- until Heather reappears. When Holly, sans baby, is swept off to Nashville, she leaves Wyatt behind. She's spent her whole life fighting to be a singer, and she can't imagine changing direction -- even just to include Wyatt in her plans. It takes her quite a while to realize that she'd been a fool to think that her life had to go as planned. When she tells Wyatt that she misses him, that she loves him more than anything, "more than music," it's doubly romantic because we've watched her fight so hard against that realization.
Jill Mansell's Staying at Daisy's features another woman whose stubbornness almost costs her a happy future. Daisy MacLean's husband was in a car crash with the girlfriend Daisy knew nothing about -- and who turned out to be pregnant. So Daisy avoids charming men like her former husband, especially Dev Tyzack, a sarcastic, gorgeous man with the habit of saying things like, "You know, if you relaxed more, I'm sure you could find a husband." Daisy doesn't kill him on the spot, which is a tribute to her self-control. But her self-control is also the problem: she can't relax enough to admit that Dev might break the mold. Like Holly, Daisy cannot picture a future other than the one she has planned for herself. It takes a head like a rock to inform Dev that now they've had their fling, "you and I will never see each other again, and we'll all live happily ever after." But in her blow-off is the clue to the hardheaded person's primary mistake: they have already decided exactly how to live happily ever after. It's not easy for Daisy to take the plunge and realize that a safe life is not necessarily a happy one.
Cathie Linz's hero in Bad Girls Don't knows exactly what he doesn't want in his life: chaos. Skye Wright, a single mom, belly dancer, and self-proclaimed free spirit embodies chaos. Sheriff Nathan Thornton is repelled by the very idea of a girl with a purse full of unpaid driving tickets, and the conviction that waving a smudge stick around her apartment will "cleanse" it. Too bad this former Marine's commonsense is overruled by fierce desire. This is an enchanting novel, full of funny characters and -- at its heart -- a stubborn man who does his best to resist when Skye dances her way into his life. As with Daisy, there's a tragedy at the heart of Noah's stubborn wish to color within the lines. And in her own way, Skye is just as hardheaded: she wouldn't have considered a policeman as a boyfriend in a million years. But as she says, Noah doesn't "kiss like an uptight cop." Noah and Skye bring out the best in each other: he grounds her, and she takes the edge off his cautious approach. If you haven't discovered this happy, funny book, grab it -- and then save it for a rainy day.
Tamara Hogan's Taste Me offers a fascinating riff on a similar couple. Scarlett Fontaine is a rock star with all that label entails -- fans, grueling tours, amazing musical ability, a wild lifestyle. Lukas Sebastiani is a lot closer to Noah. He's not a cop -- and since this is set in a paranormal parallel universe, he's actually an incubus -- but as head of Sebastiani Security, he has a cop mentality with, as he puts it, "control issues." He doesn't want to be with Scarlett because he can't be absolutely certain that he can protect her: "Intellectually, he knew that he had to step back, let her take risks, to live her life -- beautiful, wild, and free." This makes Scarlett sound a bit like a lioness in Born Free, but Lukas's and Scarlett's clash is classic. Where Scarlett sees a shooting star, Lukas sees space debris hitting the atmosphere. Taste Me is a fantasy, with a secondary plot that involves a crazed murderer with a possession problem. But the fun of the story isn't merely in its paranormal flourishes (though the co-existence of Annie Leibowitz and fairies is a burst of creative anachronism) but in the collision of two hardheaded people. Both Taste Me and Bad Girls Don't make it clear that airy-fairy, politically correct girls can be just as narrow-minded as the obstinate, conservative men who long to keep them safe.
Molly Harper's How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf pushes the pairing of a free-spirited heroine and a hero with uncanny abilities and over-protective instincts to hilarious extremes. Mo Weinstein has dropped everything in her life, put her belongings in a beat-up Ford, and rented a tiny house in Grundy, Alaska -- as far from her parents and the "lower 48" as possible. In short, she's the epitome of a free spirit, although she desperately wants to deny that her hippie parents had anything to do with her choices. Mo's first rebellion had her almost married to a Christian Conservative with membership in the Steak of the Month club; her second takes her to Alaska. She meets Cooper Graham as soon she enters Grundy. He's the opposite of the "normal" man she hopes to find: he's a werewolf who hates back-to-nature weirdos (read "free spirits"). And Mo realizes, with a sinking heart, that he's just her type: "That cinched it. He was an asshole. I was definitely going to end up sleeping with him." How to Flirt is a rollicking, sweet novel that made me laugh aloud. Cooper is the epitome of a stubborn male, determined to stay far away from Mo until he's certain he can protect her. But it's really Mo's wise-cracking, hilarious voice that makes this novel such a pleasure to read.
There's a canonical base to each of these novels, obviously: opposites attract. But I think the real pleasure of watching an obstinate man or woman fall in love is that they try so passionately to avoid it -- and that burst of emotion makes for great romance. When Lukas, in Taste Me, finally succumbs to the lust and love he's been fighting, Scarlett says he "tasted of coffee and desperation": that desperation is a reader's treat. It's hard not to finish reading these five novels and find yourself agreeing with Cat Stevens: once a hardheaded man (or woman) stops fighting the conviction that he don't want you, "the rest of your life will be blessed."
Molly Harper is the author of eight novels, including The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires and Nice Girls Don’t Bite Their Neighbors. She worked for six years as a reporter and humor columnist for The Paducah Sun, covering courts, school board meetings, quilt shows, and once, the arrest of a Florida man who faked his suicide by shark attack and spent the next few months tossing pies at a local pizzeria. Molly lives in western Kentucky with her family.
Mo Duval-Wenstein drives from Leland, Mississippi to Grundy, Alaska; population of 2,053. She left behind a broken engagement and a concerned mother who has flooded her cell's voice mail with a zillion "call me" messages that she deletes each night without listening to them. She needed to get away so she leased the Meyers' place for a year. Her first person to greet the Lower Forty-eight transplant is Yosemite Sam AKA Nate Gogan the lawyer.
Her abode smells of dead fish as the last residents were weekend anglers. At the Blue Glacier Saloon, Mo meets owner Evie DuChamp who tells her as long as they don't offer her meat they are harmless. She also meets Cooper Graham who scoffs at a southerner surviving in Alaska. He conceals from her that from his first sniff he knows who she is to him. Soon afterward, Mo is taken aback when a naked Cooper with an animal trap locked onto his ankle limps onto her porch. He is a werewolf, who fears he is the serial killing wolf murdering people. Mo refuses to believe her alpha life mate is a psychopath even in animal form so he risks her life to prove her assertion.
This jocular Alaskan romance places a dysfunctional werewolf pack whose alpha has deserted them and a Mississippi Delta woman into the middle of Northern Exposure. With culture clashes that make Fleischman seem like another Native Alaskan instead of a New Yorker, How To Flirt With A Naked Werewolf is a zany tongue in cheek lampooning of the sub-genre. Filled with sassy southern sensitivities and wacky werewolf wanting, fans will enjoy "Nice Girls Don't" marry dead men with fangs in places like Leland or Half Moon Hollow, but in Alaska tongue out of cheek lycanthropes make better lovers.
Harriet Klausner
2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted January 10, 2011
I Also Recommend:
I LOVED Molly Harper's Jane Jameson series and have been waiting with baited breath for something new from her! Her books are amazing!! Be sure to check them out!
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted July 25, 2012
It made my day better
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Bookishdragon
Posted July 18, 2012
Caution: do not drink while reading!
Wonderful characters and story.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted May 27, 2012
This is just a wonderful read, found myself laughing at the scenerios throughout the book, a different pace for the paranormal reader, thought it was a well written "who done it." So if your looking for something a bit different then the ordinally you will enjoy this one, and I'm looking forward to reading the next of this series.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.I picked up Molly Harper at a garage sale got hooked and now must have them all. Vampires werewolves and funny they have it all and this title was no different werewolves awesome
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.kmtnd
Posted March 16, 2012
love the premise and the story - well worth it. I haven't started reading the second book, but liked this one so well I purchased both. Almost makes a girl want to head to Alaska seeking her own wolf to keep her warm during the long winter nights.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.This is the first novel of Molly Harper's that I have read and I found it very entertaining and I will be reading some more books by this author. I could tell by the tittle of this book that it was going to be a fun romp. The characters are great. I don't think there is a character, well besides the bad guy that I didn't like. All of them from Main Characters to secondary characters were so alive.
Mo is a very spunky and at times you might think a little suicidal (picking fights with werewolf females..lol) but I liked how she defended Cooper and never backed down either. She even smacked Cooper a couple of times too, she definitely had some nerve. I guess that makes her perfect for dating a werewolf. Cooper, he is sexy and brooding, sometimes I wanted to smack him myself for the way he acted, but he grows on you. Evie, Buzz, Abner, Alan, and the rest of the Grundy gang sweeps you off your feet and you just fall in love with them all. Because of this I have a bone to pick with the author because of what happens to one of my favorite characters, but I shall now say because you must read the book and find out yourself.
Molly Harper has a unique way of blending comedy and the paranormal together to make her books just down right fun to read. How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf by Molly Harper is one of those books that will make you laugh out loud and elicit a gambit of emotion. The building up of the love connection is artfully done. Ms. Harper also administers a good who-dun-it mystery in with the amalgamation of her book. Plus, she has filled this book with wacky characters and comical, snarky one-liners. This was the most fun I have had reading a book in a long while. Though for those who may not care for sex in their books I must say that this is an adult read.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Fun read, while I wasn't chuckling or laughing out loud it was a fun entertaining read. Worth the read but not a keeper for my permanent library. Witty & fun loving!
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf is the first book in Molly Harper's Naked Werewolf series.
This is a fabulous light read. What I'd call a vacation book.
You have Mo Wenstien who moves to the small town of Grundy, Alaska from Mississippi to get away from her failed engagement and her truly hippie parents. More the parents than the engagement.
To say she was surprised where a very hot, naked Cooper Graham shows up on her doorstep with a bear trap on his leg, is an understatement but finding out Cooper is a werewolf was a touch more shocking.
Reading this book, its as though Mo is sitting across from you at lunch sharing her story. You feel she's talking to you, like she's an old friend.
Some people find Mo's life a little too convenient in the story but I feel Molly explained things in a very believable manner. While I wish we could have gotten more depth from Cooper, the story is in first person and so we are limited to just Mo's side of the story.
Despite this, I found it enjoyable. It made me want to visit Alaska... in the summer... when its warm... well, warmer.
Funny, light read Check it out.
DaniK274
Posted March 8, 2013
Fun start to a new series
Molly Harper has out done herself with this book! I became a fan of hers after reading Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs and I've not been disappointed. This new series has me begging for more! I'm on pins and needles waiting for the next book's release.
Mo is looking for her sense of self after living with some very extreme "hippie" parents, who seem to think that they need to know what she's doing twenty- four seven. Cooper is an alpha werewolf, who's on a self imposed exile from his pack. These two are hardly civil to each other when in the same room, so you know it's love at first fight. What ensued had me in hysterics and making my family look at me funny for it. I was on the edge of my seat as well and couldn't stop turning the pages until it was done.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who asks. It will leave you in stitches!
Anonymous
Posted February 13, 2013
This is the first book of Mollys that i read . when I finished i ran out and got every one of her books I could get my hands on. well thought out characters, intriguing plot, lots of humor too. Don't think twice, just read and enjoy!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted February 9, 2013
Love this series
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.A great getaway romance!
I love Cooper. He sure knows how to make an entrance and sweep a girl right off her feet. Cooper is probably one of the surliest, most pain-in the butt, sexiest werewolves I’ve come across; he makes me bite my bottom lip. And then there is Mo: a girl who has overcome her crazy past and made a name for herself. She’s nice, but stands up for herself and the people she loves when needed. My kind of girl. And here is what got me from the beginning: who hasn’t thought about packing up and moving to some obscure location to simply find yourself? I think about that at least twice a year. I found myself smiling more, and more while reading this novel. I found myself falling in love with Cooper from the moment she described him, and his cocky and angry attitude. From the way he shuts her up, to the way he shows up at her house I was completely taken. If Cooper were real I would be having his Pups. Now, I was quite shocked because there is a bit of a mystery that ties in with the romance and usually I am good at calling who the “bad guy” is, but I couldn’t pin point who it was until it was revealed. It was pretty well hidden which makes me even happier. There was something that I didn’t like about the book mainly Mo…just a little tiny bit. She seemed too perfect sometimes (this may be my jealousy over Cooper come out too). I found myself swept away to a small obscure town like I’ve dreamt about doing so many times, and while I was there Molly Harper told me a love story that sizzled my skin from head to toe while giving me an adventure along side it.
Good:
Cooper—I definitely have no complaints about sexy, sexy Cooper. Other than the fact that he is not real. Or, maybe he is and I just need to have a really really long road trip.
Mo—She independent and has gotten away from her over bearing flower-power parents and created a life for herself.
Maggie—She has some anger-management issues. Or maybe she just has some girl power. Either way…her character makes me smile a little.
Allan—I did like you Allan.
Bad:
Mo—sometimes she seemed just a little too perfect.
Overall (Writing style, story line, and general):
Overall the story was well written and the characters were extremely enjoyable. I loved reading and watching as the plot and the characters evolved, and I loved when Cooper said things and/or did certain extremely sexy things that I know every girl would have loved their man to pull off just as effectively. I laughed, I cheered, and I even got angry sometimes. Molly Harper keeps you on your toes and your heart pounding with her supernatural romance that is sure to bring a smile to all her reader’s faces.
Anonymous
Posted November 23, 2012
Truly enjoyed this book as it had just the right amounts of humor, drama and sex! With it's realistic portrayal of some of the demands( yes, and beauty and rewards) of living in Alaska, I couldn't take it, even with a Cooper to keep me busy!
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Posted October 10, 2012
A t,young woman takes off to get away from loving, controling hippie parents,to find out what life will be for her. What happens after she picks a small town in Alaska is a grealty told, humerous story. A little sex but mostly what she goes through in her life in her new town. Never laughed so hard. Its written frim her mind n viwn,w which is even better.
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Posted September 27, 2012
I was very impressed with the character development and story line. Because of erotica content which was intense I would suggest it for adults only. Unfortunately the sequal "How to Seduce a Naked Werewolf" was not as well done as the first.
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Posted July 31, 2012
Hilarious & better than expected. This was different from your usual sappy romance novel. I enjoyed all the characters; they all seemed to come to life. The author has an incredible way of writing about real life concerns like protective parents, generational differences, communication problems, etc with such wit and comedy. I found myself laughing and surprised throughout the entire read. Her parents are a hoot (trapped in the hippie era), Mo is so sassy, Alan is so sweet, the townspeople so welcoming of her, and even the brooding Cooper grows on you. I just love how the author combined paranormal romance, comedy, and mystery all in one.
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Posted February 22, 2012
Love Molly Harper's work. The story is so much fun to read and the characters are fantastic. So funny at times with a bit of suspense and mystery. She does a great job drawing you into the story and keeping you turning the pages to see what is next.
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Posted January 5, 2012
Love it!!!
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Overview
Northern Exposure
Even in Grundy, Alaska, it’s unusual to find a naked guy with a bear trap clamped to his ankle on your porch. But when said guy turns into a wolf, recent southern transplant Mo Wenstein has no difficulty identifying the problem. Her surly neighbor Cooper Graham—who has been openly critical of Mo’s ability to adapt to life in Alaska—has trouble of his own. Werewolf trouble.
For Cooper, an Alpha in self-imposed exile from his ...