It’s been nearly a year since Scott and Ted set up house together in St. Jerome. Life is good. Ted is trying to get his PI business off the ground with the occasional job and still painting for the gallery. Scott is alpha of the pack and sheriff of St. Jerome.
But Scott’s mother, Darlene Dupree, is not content. She wants grandkids and she wants them now. Taking matters into her own hands, Maman, as Scott and Ted call her, works her magic in the middle of the night next to the bayou.
Before Scott and Ted know it, they’re saddled with two boys. Which wouldn’t be so bad, if someone in the pack would take them in. But no one steps forward to claim them and Scott and Ted are left with a terrible choice, take in the kids themselves or give them up to CPS, where the boys can’t hide what they are – werewolves.
It’s the wrong time and the wrong kids. But the first rule of the pack is to protect the pack and there is no other choice to make.
Bayou des Enfants (Rougaroux Social Club #4), by Lynn Lorenz
Rating: 5 out of 5!
I’ll start off this review with a guilty admission: Whenever I see a review of a book other than #1 in a series I haven’t read I immediately skip past it. Hopefully others won’t do so with this because it’s really quite good. While you might understand a bit more about the characters and the setting if you start with Book 1 (Bayou Dreams, which I gave a 4 out of 5 review here), I think this book would also stand alone. This is the continuing story of small-town Louisiana sheriff Scott Dupree and his partner, former New Orleans cop/private investigator Ted Canedo. I fell in love with these characters in Bayou Dreams and it’s wonderful to spend more time with them.
To date I have generally taken a pass on books with couples raising kids. It’s not that I have anything against kids or the topic itself, it just didn’t seem like something that would interest me. Since I’ve enjoyed the Rougaroux Social Club series to date I figured I would give it a shot. I’m glad I did! This is a very sweet story.
Scott and Ted are in a quandary. Scott wants kids but isn’t always that great at dealing with them. Ted doesn’t feel he’s ready for kids but handles them quite well. They take in Timothy (age 6) and Charles (age 10) on a temporary basis after their mother and abusive father are killed in a car accident. The difficulties they have adjusting and slowly becoming a family are incredibly endearing.
Their efforts at becoming a family are threatened by a homophobic community, though. I wish I could say that this aspect of the story is overblown, but I grew up in the American South and I know that even to this day such attitudes exist. It’s hard to read sometimes, but I think it is important to acknowledge that this homophobia exists and can be damaging in unexpected ways.
There is a nice little subplot to this book as well, where Ted and Scott struggle with their relationship and issues of dominance, masculinity, and gender roles both in their daily routine and sexually. This leads to some extremely hot times in the bedroom that I definitely appreciated!
This was a sweet, enjoyable book that I’m glad I took the time to read. I do hope we don’t have to wait another two years for the next book in the series!
Also posted on Tumblr at: http://ift.tt/2m2FluA