Alpha’s Christmas Flame (Bear Shifter Billionaire: Book 4) by A.J. Tipton

4 Stars

Publisher: Savvy Storytelling LLC

Date of publication: December 14th, 2015

Genre: Paranormal, Romance, Erotica

Series: Bear Shifter Billionaire

Alpha’s Heir – Book 1 (review here)

Alpha’s Mates – Book 2 (review here)

Alpha’s Domain – Book 3 (review here)

Alpha’s Christmas Flame – Book 4

Where you can find this book: Amazon

Book synopsis:

A sexy fireman broken from his last rescue. A beautiful bear shifter hiding from her family’s fame. When magical secrets are discovered, will their love stand strong after the smoke clears?

Dean Michaelson loved being a firefighter until he was injured on duty. When his new job as a fire inspector takes him to the ice hotel where Donna works, he fears he’s stumbled upon a nuclear deathtrap. Suspecting the lusciously curvy manager, Donna, is hiding the truth, Dean has no choice but to investigate on his own, unaware he is entering an underworld of danger and magic. Will the attraction building between Dean and Donna be extinguished before it has a chance to spark?

The brilliant bear shifter Donna Mechka is a billionaire in hiding, working the desk at a magical ice hotel. She wants to throw aside the reputation of her wealthy family and find somebody who loves her for her mind, not her money. When a human ex-firefighter, Dean, walks into her hotel on Christmas Eve, it seems she might have found the man of her dreams. But when Dean’s investigations bring him closer to discovering the hotel’s magical secrets, Donna must decide which is more important: protecting the hotel, or her budding love.

Alpha’s Christmas Flame is a holiday, paranormal romance novella in the “Bear Shifter Billionaire” series, a set of stand-alone stories that sizzle and satisfy. If you like brave pixies, smoldering strip poker, and holiday heat, then you’ll love this breathtaking book.

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My review:

Dean Michaelson hates Christmas. He was injured fighting a fire last Christmas, and his injury has landed him on a desk job. Not where he wants to be. He wants to be out there, fighting fires and not going to upscale hotels, doing annual inspections of their fire and emergency precautions. And not dealing with receptionists who are either ignoring him or buttering him up for something.

Donna Mechka is working at the front desk at the Wondernasium Hotel when this hot firefighter walks in and tells her that he needs to do an annual inspection. She tries to put him off, explaining that they are short-staffed due to the flu and a bellhop who decided to join a motorcycle club. He checks into the hotel and, when Donna is distracted, he decides to go check things out by himself.

Which ends up to be not such a smart thing. In Dean’s snooping, he opens a door called the electrical room and finds an enormous ball of light. And what does he think? He thinks that the hotel is harboring a nuclear bomb and calls his former Chief in for back up.

As he is doing that, Donna is sitting at the bar with Lola, having a drink, discussing Dean, and wondering why their regular inspector sent a human. As Lola explains that Ben has a fail-safe in place for events such as this, Dean shows up. Donna agrees to show him around, not knowing that he has snooped, and he has seen the enormous ball of light in the basement.

As he is telling her all of that, a fire alarm goes off. They get to the burning room, and Donna says that she can recruit a guest to help with the fire. She orders Dean to get everyone out, but before he could do that, they hear a woman screaming for help.

In the room, there are two people, a woman and a man. The man is hindered with the woman trying with all of her might to help him. Donna decides to get a hydra to help suck out the oxygen in the air. Dean, of course, is confused. It was at this point that the man passes out, and Dean makes the startling realization that Moe is very heavy. Heavy enough that he can’t lift him.

Donna reveals that Moe is a yeti and that the hotel is not what he thinks it should be. The crane he saw in the doorway of the hotel room ends up being an 8-foot tall lizard with 50 heads. That he saw witches pushing cauldrons in the hallway and that the woman with Moe was a pixie. He also realized that the nuclear weapon he thought he saw was magic.

But it was when Donna shifted into a bear that his mind was blown. After Moe came too and walked away with his pixie girlfriend, Donna and Dean were alone in her office. After she gets dressed, Dean demands answers. Donna counters with a game of Five Card Stud. As they play, and she answers his questions, it turns into strip Five Card Stud, and that gets interrupted by his ex-chief.

I thought that this was a great book to wrap up the Bear Shifter Billionaire Series. What better than with a hunky firefighter and a bear shifter?

Dean did bother me a bit. Usually, I like it when my hero is a bit grumpy, but he had a massive chip on his shoulder, and he was sneaky.

I did like Donna. She was dealing with an awful situation and took charge like a boss.

I had to laugh when Dean found the magic snowflake in the basement and thought it was a nuclear bomb. But, considering at that point, he did not know anything magical, I would have assumed the same thing.

I thought Dean and Donna were a cute couple and loved them when they played strip Five Card Stud. I never thought of Five Card Stud as a game for stripping, but thinking about it, it could be.

The end of the book was adorable.

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I would give Alpha’s Christmas Flame an Adult rating. There is sex. There is language. There is mild violence. I would recommend that no one under the age of 21 read this book.

I would reread Alpha’s Christmas Flame. I would recommend it to family and friends.

**I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book**