This was a standard paranormal romance with a great world building but the characterizations could use some work. It was a quick read because it took all of two minutes to be immersed in the swampy Everglades and the town of Bitten Point. The hero, Caleb, has returned to his hometown after leaving really quickly one night four years ago and going into the military. After escaping the military, he recovered in one of Langlais' other series towns, before coming back. The heroine was Renata (Renny), high school sweetheart to Caleb until he just upped and left, leaving her with a parting gift that is 4 years old at the start of the book. Thankfully, it doesn't take Renny long to tell Caleb about Luke, so there is no big misunderstanding. There is "big, bad secret" that forced Caleb to leave BP - and that secret felt a little lazy from the get-go, moreso when Caleb gets truth via the POV of secondary character who he doesn't like but does trust.
I loved the world and will probably give the other books in the series a try. The humor is great and the shifter animals are very different than the typical paranormal romance - Caleb is a crocodile shifter, his brother is a python shifter, Caleb's BFF is a panther, and there are bear shifters and gator shifters. Langlais takes time with her world-building, adding details to make the world make sense and yet mysterious and different from the real world (such as the reproductive rules/limits of inter-species coupling).
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