Jurassic Heart (Anna Martin)
3.5 stars
I have read roughly 2000+ stories since I first discovered the MM romance genre back in 2008 (yes, 2000+, LOTS of short stories, okay?). After awhile, finding something unique and different, especially in the contemporary genre (my main genre) becomes more and more difficult.
That was why, in that sense, I appreciated the paleontology / dinosaur-digging exploration aspect of this book. It definitely made this story stand out among others … simply because I have never found a story with this kind of set-up before. I enjoyed the dinosaur-talk part – it was really fun, even if at times, it also felt a bit of an ‘information dump’, especially related to the dinosaur species.
The mystery about who was planning to ruin the exploration was nice – I enjoyed the twist. It added an adrenaline burst to what could be a humdrum situation about the daily life of the people involved in the exploration.
The romance, unfortunately, was a bit of a let down for me. I felt that Hunter, Nick’s love interest, was having a quick personality change from Mr. Adversary to Mr. Kinky Lover to Mr. Sort-of-Needy in the end. I was having whiplash following it. It felt like he was whining about Nick’s platonic relationship with Boner. The sudden talk about exploring the kink was also coming out of the blue, my reaction was a huge “huh?!” Truthfully, Nick was also slightly bland. I definitely thought the secondary character, Boner, and the Goth girls were more interesting.
Bottom line, I enjoyed this and will remember it for the ‘dinosaur dig’ set-up and the mystery, but not so much on the romance. That one was forgettable.
3