Bea Reviews Her Bah Humbug Bear by Marie Mason

Publisher: Marie Mason
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Release Date: February 10, 2016 
Buying Links: Amazon* - affiliate link; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through this link.

Blurb from goodreads:

Shy and curvy librarian Mercy Thompson was finally getting to celebrate the Christmas season in a very long time. Raised by an aunt who believed Christmas was just another commercialized holiday, she’d hadn’t been allowed a tree, a brightly wrapped present or even a frosted sugar cookie.

When she meets bear shifter Dirk Stockwell, she immediately feels a pull toward him. She knows however, that she is not his mate. How? Because the big bear ignores her. Fate, however, is willing to lend a hand to the young woman in search of the Christmas spirit…
Dirk is a bear shifter who doesn’t believe in Christmas and a whole lot of other things. He especially doesn’t believe he’s worthy of a mate. Having failed to protect his parents and siblings, he withdrew from the world, readily accepting his fate to be a lone bear. And during the Christmas season—a Bah Humbug bear.

Fate and the magic of Christmas has to work overtime to bring this couple together.

Bea's Thoughts:

I confess, the title and cover caught my eye, lately I've had a thing for bear shifters, but it was the blurb that made me sit up. The heroine of the story, Mercy Thompson, has the same name as the heroine of a major urban fantasy series, The Mercy Thompson series, by Patricia Briggs. The name is the only thing the two characters have in common. The author either doesn't Google her character names as some authors do, or she deliberately chose use to the same name, trying to cash in on name recognition, as at least one other of her books uses the name of a major character from the TV show "Charmed". That left a sour taste in my mouth.

The actual book was meh. It was too short, needed more depth and world building. I was intrigued by Mason's world but still have a lot of questions. Both of the leads, Mercy and Dirk, have sad or tragic pasts, which serves as the bulk of the character development. The romance and sex happen quickly and too easily. The sex is steamy, the obstacles somewhat believable but given short shrift. The story is only 75 pages and it's just too short, there's little in the way of plot or character development. There are also a lot of typos, wrong words, etc. This is supposedly the revised version, which is sad given the poor copy editing in this version. If you're in the mood for a quick and steamy PNR story that's long on fluff and light on depth or quality, this is for you.