Reviewer: Tracy
Malsum Pass by Kimberly Forrest
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: December 11th 2016
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After locating some letters her mother had kept hidden from her all her life, Tara Mason journeys to the small town of Malsum Pass, Vermont to find the family she never knew she had and to discover just why her mother had kept this place such a secret.

The town seems idyllic despite the townspeople’s odd habit of staring and… sniffing? And her new neighbor Riley Cooper looks like he could have been conjured from one of Tara’s fantasies, but there is definitely more going on here than meets the eye. Tara is determined to uncover all of the secrets, even if it reveals things she never knew about herself.

Tara is excited and anxious as she drives to Malsum Pass, Vermont.  She was raised by her mother and step-father but whenever Tara raised questions about her biological father her mother shut her down quickly.  She’s always wanted to know about her roots so when her mother dies and her step-father finds letters addressed to Tara’s mother that were never opened she’s more than curious.  It turns out that she has a grandfather that’s always wanted to meet her but her mother had never even opened most of the letters he wrote.  He had finally stopped writing a few years earlier so she’s not sure what she’ll find in Malsum Pass when she gets there.

Tara’s first stop in MP is the diner where everyone seems to stop and stare at her.  She’s freaked out but when she tells the waitress who she’s looking for she sends a runner to go get Tara’s grandpa.  To say that her grandfather is happy to see her is an understatement.  He immediately takes her to the house he has waiting for her and sets her up and then she eventually meets her father (who knew nothing about her existence) and her three half-brothers.

Tara ends up loving the town and its people, although her neighbor Riley Cooper earned the name “rude, arrogant ass” right off the bat.  He is a hot, rude arrogant ass so at least he’s nice to look at.  🙂  Luckily Tara and Coop (as he’s known) become friends and they start falling in love.  There is, however, a secret about Malsum Pass that hasn’t been revealed to Tara  – most of the town can get furry whenever they want to – and when she finds out she may decide that things are just too strange for her to stay permanently.

Malsum Pass was a good paranormal story.  I really liked the family aspect of the story, with Tara finding her long-lost grandfather, father and brothers.  She finally got that sense of family that she’d never felt before. It really seemed like a nice place to live if you didn’t mind that they most of them turned into wolves.

The romance in the book was a little rushed, imho.  Tara went from find Coop annoying but hot to kissing him and then they moved right along.  Coop, when they slept together, moved really quickly to the next phase of their relationship and I felt kind of like I was on a train that had no brakes.  I wanted more build up between the two, that’s for sure.  I wasn’t a huge fan of Coop’s, ever, so I think I needed the extra time (between Tara and Coop) to get to know each other that the author didn’t include in the story.

The story had a decent flow to it overall.  It did get a bit slow in the middle where it didn’t seem like anything much was happening – just showing us day to day living – but it picked up and ended well.

Rating: 3.5/3.75 out of 5