Bear With Me: Fairy-tale Inspired Fantasy Romance Featuring a Dragon, a Pirate, a Fey, a Bear Shifter, and a Were-Tiger

Jennifer Blackstream

Apr 2017 · Blood Realm Book 4 · Skeleton Key Publishing

About this ebook

A wager with trolls put his kingdom on the line.

Trapped in a bear’s form, he must find a bride.

But what woman will get into bed with a bear and trust there’s a man waiting for her?

Torben is a bear shifter struggling to pass a test laid on him by his power-hungry stepmother. Bound into his beast form during the day, able to be human only at night, he must find a wife. She can know him only as a bear and a bodiless voice in the night.

 

He thinks he’s found the perfect solution when he marries Leta, a would-be bard struck blind after witnessing her mother’s murder.

 

But trolls don’t play fair.

 

Fortunately, even a blind woman can see when something is worth fighting for…

The Blood Realm series is a spin-off/continuation of the Blood Prince series, so you can expect even more sensual romance told in the style of the old fairy tales we can’t get enough of. Look forward to moody dragon shifters, roguish pirates, morally flexible fae, cursed bear shifters, and a thief who’s more than meets the eye.

All of my books are written in the same universe (yes, even the Blood Trails series, which is contemporary, not historical like the Blood Prince/Blood Realm series—and you’ll have to read Deadline to find out how I managed that…). Be ready for crossovers and cameos!

Series keywords: fantasy, fantasy romance, mythology, fantasy series, speculative fiction, paranormal, myths, myth retelling, fairy tales, fairy tale retellings, folktales, folklore, humor, action, adventure, deities, gods, magic, elves, romance, epic

Ratings and reviews

Bear With Me is book 4 in the Blood Realm series that directly follows the Blood Prince series. None of this series needs be read in any order, though reading the first series will let you understand the final chapters of each better. Also, it's an awesome series: read it! The book is written in third person omniscient from (primarily) the lead character's points of view. The story is a complete re-imagining of the Grimm tale Bearskin. It's certainly a lesser known story, and with some very dark connotations that ensured it never really got a sparkly remake to show up in modern children's tales. The devil is not in this book, but a rather unpleasant woman who could be compared to him is. That she made the male lead an actual bear shifter was expected but also generally just a fun twist. Torben was a very relatable character who I very much adored from the first meeting: he's the second son, duty bound to be what his father wants, even if it's not what he wants, protective of his brother, dedicated to his people and his country, a good soldier, but also a generally good person. Throughout the book he shows again and again how full of compassion he really is. No pampered prince here. Leta is a very interesting character that I was thoroughly impressed with the overall depiction of: a woman who has suffered a mental trauma so horrible she's blind now. Having known several people with PTSD, I can vouch that it shows in different ways, and that the author treated the situation with the gravity it deserved. Her frustrations of the mundane variety were so real it was almost painful for me to read. Extremely well done imagery, no pun intended. As a couple, I thought the complimented each other rather well. I liked the gradual development of their relationship (in a manner of speaking-it was still very fast, as these things tend to be) and the way they challenged each other. The story was VERY different than the original tale, with barely the bones of the original showing, but the new tale was quite the ride. We even saw some characters from previous books (Blue Voodoo), which is always fun. If you enjoy fantastical tales of shifters, sorceresses, curses, princes willing to do anything for their people, women who are strong and stubborn, a small dose of steam, and a little bit of action, this is a book you should read!

Stunning story enjoyed it .

About the author

USA Today bestselling author Jennifer Blackstream is…odd. Putting aside the fact that she writes her own author bio in third person, she also sleeps with a stuffed My Little Pony that her grandmother bought her as a joke for her 23rd birthday, and she enjoys listening to Fraggle Rock soundtracks whether or not her children are in the car. 

Jennifer understands that it is customary for authors to talk about how they started writing, and how they’ve been coming up with stories since they were children. But Jennifer is a rebel, so she’s not going to talk about that. Instead, she’s going to share a quote from Terry Pratchett that she feels best describes where authors get their inspiration: 

“Little particles of inspiration sleet through the universe all the time travelling through the densest matter in the same way that a neutrino passes through a candyfloss haystack, and most of them miss. Even worse, most of the ones that hit the exact cerebral target hit the wrong one. For example, the weird dream about a lead doughnut on a mile-high gantry, which in the right mind would have been the catalyst for the invention of repressed-gravitational electricity generation (a cheap and inexhaustible and totally non-polluting form of power which the world in question had been seeking for centuries, and for the lack of which it was plunged into a terrible and pointless war) was in fact had by a small and bewildered duck.”

All of that is to say, that authors are what happens when a falling particle of inspiration strikes someone insane enough to think spending their life arguing with imaginary people about how their story should be written is a grand idea.

Jennifer doesn’t have spare time, but she makes it a point to spend at least one night a week with her sibling binge-watching whatever show they’re currently plowing through (currently Numbers on Netflix), and she ferociously guards quality time with her son and daughter. She cooks when she has the sanity for it—adding garlic to the recipe whether it calls for it or not—and tries very hard not to let her arachnophobia keep her out of her basement on laundry day.

Jennifer’s influences include Terry Pratchett (for wit), Laurell K. Hamilton (for sexual tension), Jim Butcher (for roguish flair), and Kim Harrison (for mythos). She is currently writing the series of her heart and her dreams, the series that has been percolating in her brain for the last decade…Blood Trails. An Urban Fantasy Mystery series that will combine the classic whodunit spirit with a contemporary fantasy setting. Expect mystery, magic, and mayhem, with characters that will make you laugh, cry, and probably stare at the screen with your jaw hanging down to the floor. Well, that’s how they affect Jennifer anyway…

Jennifer currently has three series going:

BLOOD PRINCE SERIES (COMPLETE):
Book 1 – Before Midnight
Book 2 – One Bite
Book 3 – Golden Stair
Book 4 – Divine Scales
Book 5 – Beautiful Salvation

Bonus Adventures in the Blood Prince World:
Book 2.5 – What Big Teeth You Have (free when you sign up for mailing list mentioned below)
Book 4.5 – The Pirate’s Witch
Book 5.5 – Dead to Begin With (available only between Thanksgiving and whenever Jennifer takes her Christmas tree down)

BLOOD REALM SERIES (IN PROGRESS SPIN-OFF OF BLOOD PRINCE SERIES):
Book 1 – All for a Rose
Book 2 – Blue Voodoo
Book 3 – The Archer
Book 4 – Bear With Me
Book 5 – Stolen Wish

BLOOD TRAILS SERIES (URBAN FANTASY RELEASING JANUARY 2018)
Book 1 – Deadline