Tracy’s review of Hair of the Dog by Ashlyn Kane and Morgan James

It’s nine o’clock the morning after his father’s funeral, and Ezra Jones already knows it’s going to be a bad day. He wakes up hungover, sore, and covered in blood. Then it gets worse: the handsome and compelling Callum Dawson shows up on his doorstep claiming Ezra’s been turned into a werewolf. Ezra wants to be skeptical, but the evidence is hard to ignore.

Ezra doesn’t have a lot of time to get used to the rules Alpha Callum imposes—or the way his body responds to Callum’s dominance—as he’s busily working for the CDC to help uncover the origins of a lycan epidemic. When the sexual tension finally breaks, Ezra barely has time to enjoy it, because a new danger threatens. Someone wants Ezra for their own unscrupulous purposes and will do anything to get him.

Ezra feels like he’s been run over by a truck. His entire body aches and he has dried blood in his hair. As far as he can remember he was walking home from his father’s wake and he didn’t think he drank all that much. Why can’t he remember what happened.

When his doorbell rings Ezra is confronted with men in black – or at least that’s how he looks at it. He let’s the men in and they soon come up with a story that is beyond ridiculous…that he was bit by a sick werewolf – they prefer Lycan – and that he will soon turn into one as well. What? Really? He’s more than skeptical until the Alpha of the pack shows his teeth growing. Ezra follows directions and is soon ensconced in one of the pack members homes just waiting for the full moon. He’s bored and the hormones flying around – that he can now feel and almost taste on his tongue because of his heightened sense – are making him hornier than hell. Of course he wants nothing more than to take care of that issue with Callum but he was told that he wasn’t supposed to have sex until the full moon.

Ezra finally gets bored enough to force his way in to the Lycan side of the CDC (Center for Disease Control) and offers to become Callum’s unpaid assistant. Callum is trying to figure out how the lycan that bit Ezra got sick. Callum thinks that it’s a disease but he’s not sure how to stop the hormones that are going crazy in the lycan’s system. Ezra helps and then in a twist of fate discovers that it’s not a disease at all but someone actually injecting the hormones into the lycans. Callum, Ezra and soon the FBI try to figure out who’s behind the atrocities before they can do any further damage.

Hair of the Dog is a decent suspense novel that I felt had a relationship in it. Can I call it a romance? Probably not but there are lust, sex and the I Love You’s involved.

The story of the hormone problem and the investigation that ensues really takes up the majority of the book. I really liked how the characters went about figuring things out and Ezra using his computer programming skills to help out. That part of the story worked really well for me.

Then there’s the relationship. We know from the get go that Ezra would jump Callum in a hot minute and that Callum pretty much feels the same but nothing can be done about it until the full moon. Once that moon rises Callum is all over Ezra and Ezra’s right there with him. From there Callum has Ezra in his bed and there’s no question that he will remain there. I liked that Callum finally made his move on Ezra but from that time we saw nothing of the daily ins and outs of the relationship as the men were caught up in the investigation. I understand that it was on their minds but I missed seeing the connection between the two men more clearly. I think the possessiveness was clear and present on Callum’s side and I could tell Ezra was getting more attached – I would have loved to have been shown the budding relationship more. The end I Love You scene just didn’t have the same punch as it would have had we had more insight.

The two female FBI agents were….interesting. I seriously didn’t know what to make of them when they first came on the scene. One talked like a tomboy surfer dude and the other was just odd. I honestly thought they weren’t really FBI and were playing Callum and Ezra until the book went on further. I kept thinking they were on the wrong side of the law. I was surprised when I realized they were on the up and up! lol

In the end it was a good book that I enjoyed reading but I did have some issues with it as you can see. I would definitely read more from these authors in the future.

Rating: 3 out of 5

You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place

This book is available from Dreamspinner Press. You can buy it here in e-format.