Wolf with Benefits (The Pride Book 8)

4 stars for another great book by Laurenston. Wolf w/Benefits is #8 in the Pride series and I COULD NOT STOP LAUGHING! Lol. Every time i need a really good laugh, these are my MUST GO TO books. The sarcasm is beyond even my imagination sometimes, and dealing w/shifters is a totally diff ball game. In this story we have Ricky Lee Reed, wolf shifter, trying to hook up with Antonella "Toni" Jean Louis Parker, a jackal shifter. Ricky is first attracted to Toni because of her curly hair. Yep, her curly hair, Lol. Toni comes from a family of 10 children, all of which are prodigies-Cooper, Cherise, Delilah, Oriana, Kyle, Troy, Freddy, Dennis, and twins Zia and Zoe. Yes all of them except for Toni, 11 in total. Toni is very smart and just as bright as the rest of them and she keeps this brood of narcissistic jackals from not only harming each other but also from killing or harming anyone else. I loved all the childrens' personalities, except for Delilah, which you all will find out about, if you haven't read this story already. Filled with hockey antics, trying to catch a shifter killer, almost every character in this story or at least mentioned from the previous books, some from the Magnus Pride, made an appearance and I loved that so much!!! I could go on and on and on about this book it was that good!

I laughed and smiled all the way through it. Toni is the the eldest daughter that takes care of her family of OCD prodigies. They come to NY for the summer and live across the street from the wild dog pack. She meets Ricky Lee Reed and he starts a campaign for her. Hilarity ensues.She gets a job with a pro hockey team as sort of a problem solver and travel and public relations coordinator. When she has to go on a trip, Bo (the OCD Polar Bear Lion hybrid) and Blayne (the chatty and lovable wolf-dog) step in to organize the family while she's away. Even more hilarity ensues.This book is fun from beginning to end.

I have to agree w/reviewers Wheaton & Anna, I love Laurenston's Pride Series... this book, not so much. I didn't feel any chemistry between the H & h & the dialogue wasn't her usual witty banter. The heat was on simmer more than high & I really didn't care much by the time it started. I started to skim the story when I was 1/2 way thru.... something I NEVER do w/a Pride Series book.My favorites so far have been the MANE EVENT ; BEAST BEHAVING BADLY & BIG BAD BEAST ( which caused me to laugh out loud many times). Ricky just seems to "float" along w/Toni w/out a real purpose for most of the book.... she seemed attracted to him mostly because he was just there!I think the PRIDE SERIES still has many good stories left in it.... maybe Laurenston should take a break until she has her creative mojo back.... the prides, clans & packs deserve better. Personally..... I just love the pride w/their obsession w/eating & their hair/mane!!!

This has to be one of my favorites of the series. Ricky Lee...*sighs* he was very laid back wolf compared to his family of Reeds and his cousins, the Smiths. He was sweet and thoughtful and very accepting of Toni and her crazy family and he was a cute wolf. He just stuck with her to protect her but wanted her just as she was. She was mental at times and that mostly had to do with her family. I thought the separation anxiety was just AWESOME and hilarious. Toni and Ricky didnt even kiss or anything like that until maybe 65% of the book. Oh...he wanted her alright and she wanted him but things just kept happening to halt it. Besides at the beginning neither wanted anything permanent hence the name of the book. However, once they did get together their feelings changed a little bit. Secondary characters and Livy...oh I liked her. Toni's mom and dad were funny. Her sisters and brothers who were prodigies oh wow pretty full of themselves. I think Coop was the most normalish besides Freddy he was just cute as hell. We meet Vic who is in the next book and he's pretty cool actually. Delilah, Toni's 18 year old sister. Wow...she was totally nuts in a psychotic way. There is just no hope for her. I am surprised they let her live considering what she did. Perhaps its not the last we hear from her. I still louveee Dee Ann and Malone. Malone is growing on me and its a shame at this point because I didnt like her book much. Bo...haha schedules. Anyways, this was a very charming book and one of my favorites. Cant wait for the next book about Livy and Vic.

I don’t understand how a good author can create such a boring story. The humor is spot on and the characters are great. Unfortunately, the story itself has issues. I don’t mean like the occasional consistency problem. I’m referring to the fact that it gets boring here and there. The author needs to learn to not meander. I kept setting it aside because I’d start yawning and couldn’t take it any more.All the stories have the same issues. The only reason I keep reading them are because of the nicely crafted characters and because they make me laugh.

This book was very good with all of the action packed events that happen in this book.Toni, has been taking care of her siblings who are all prodigies & there are 10 of them; but now it's her time to shine & shine she did.Ricky Lee Reed is calm as entertainment will come to him no matter what & when he 1st meets Toni he is very entertained. He has been following her around from the 1st time that they met & then became her friend, her bodyguard, her lover & then the love of her life.With all of the things thrown at them this was a very good book; it also had some funny parts. & I really enjoyed Bo's parts in this book because it showed some caring tendencies about him. I also enjoyed seeing Irene & Miki in this book & I think that this is an excellent series as soon if not now that all of the characters in the previous books will all soon be related to each other by marriage/mating.

First off, let me say that you should ignore the blurb about the book. It has very little to do with the actual story, except for the last 15-20% of the book. The rest of the book is made up of fairly random bits that barely connect into a story. Most of which have nothing what do ever to do with the actual story and seem to be just put on the page to fill space. The other problem with this book is that I can't decide if the author was trying to make it amusing and just failed, or was trying to write a serious storyline and made it seem humorous. Either way she failed badly, any attempted humour falling very flat.As for the characters, the only two who seem not to be either one dimensional or badly written caricatures are Toni and her friend Livy. Even the main make character comes off as a stalker who's seduction technique seems to be stalk the girl until she inexplicably falls into bed with him.There are way better shifter romances out there, go find them and leave this book where it belongs. In the unread pile.

After reading the Honey Badger books I’d always wondered about the Jean-Louis Parker family. They always fascinated me, but we never got much more than a taste, so this book was a wonderful treat for me. The Jean-Louis Parker family is made up a former child prodigy violinist, her husband and 11 children. The eldest is the only one of the 11 who is NOT a prodigy. The eldest child is Toni and she spends her life running around and mediating for her younger siblings. This is the way of the jackal shifters, the older children help to raise the younger ones. However, these children take a lot more raising than the average child. Toni has basically given up her life to raise her siblings and has never held down a proper job.The summer in which the book is set has the clan arrive in New York and renting a house across the road from the Wild Dog pack. Jackie Jean-Louis Parker wants to mentor Johnny, the adopted son of the wild dog alpha female. Through Jackie’s machinations gain this mentorship Toni keeps bumping into Ricky Lee Reed a wolf shifter from Tennessee, who works as security and protection in the shifter world. Ricky Lee instantly finds Toni and her family fascinating and goes about trying to gain her interest.I love that this book is about Toni finding her way apart from her family and that Ricky Lee does his best to help. However, he does not want to separate her from her family and really does like them and her devotion to them. He just wants her to have her own life too.There is actually quite a lot of plot in this book to keep you interested and as always there is tonnes of banter. I love all the characters in this book, just like I knew from the glimpses I’d seen in the Honey Badger books. I’m glad I got a chance to find out more about them.

Ricky is so laidback that the book became laidback even with Toni. I just love this book and I love Ricky.Toni's family annoyed me, except Freddie and Dennie and the older two but the rest... oy!Ricky and Toni's romance wasn't forced and flowed well, loved it.I'm glad one of the Reed boys got some loving, although I was hoping Rory would get a book too. (I'm rooting for you!)The plot was well written too and flowed well.If you're new definitely read the other pride series books first as this one is one of the last. Everything will make more sense that way. Also check out the Magnus trilogy which is the trilogy that started this shifter journey.

May I start by saying how much I ADORE Shelly Laurenston "Pride" stories. Clever, funny, twisted and sexy. Great reads with great characters. And I did love this book, BUT , and it's a big "but": there was just too much going on. Even worse, not all of it meaningful. I lost track of all the Jean-Loius-Parker children, I found the REED boys boring, yes including the hero Reece. Then (spolier alert) I lost hope with the plot twist that took Dee-Ann to Magnus Pack territory-but that part was funny!On the plus side: I loved Antonella J-L Parker. Her efforts for her crazy family made me smile. On the minus side: there was a lack of some of the action we have seen in earlier stories. Additionally, I did not feel the chemistry between Toni & Reece at all. The book did leave me wanting more though. What will happen to all the wonderful 'new' characters we have been introduced to: such as Livvy, the strange but interesting photographer (funny & scary at the same time). Then there is Vic Barinov, the Russian Bear/ Tiger hybrid.The story gets 3 1/2 stars from me, not because it average, but because for the first time I was reading a Laurenston book that felt like a 'filler': a book written to fill in the gap between the next important book. All the previous books in the Pride series get 4,or 5, stars from me.

i am a huge fan of Shelly Laurenston and have read all the books in her 'Pride' series of which this book is number eight.this book was highly enjoyable and featured plenty of Laurenston's trademark wit and humour. we also get to see some characters from her 'Magnus pack' series featured in this book, which for those of us that have read them was nice.compared to other books in this series this one was perhaps slightly more sedate,but nevertheless still a great read.as always laurenston's characterization was brilliant,with so many diverse and colourful characters within the story.if your looking for an in-depth intricate shifter novel,this probably wont be for you.however,if your looking for a lighter paranormal romantic read, with diverse characters and a huge dose of humour, then this book could be right up your street!series order:1. The Mane Event (2007)2. The Beast In Him (2008)3. The Mane Attraction (2008)4. The Mane Squeeze (2009)5. Beast Behaving Badly (2010)6. Big Bad Beast (2011)7. Bear Meets Girl (2012)8. Wolf with Benefits (2013