Bearly a Lady by Cassandra Khaw

Bearly a Lady by Cassandra Khaw

My Rating: ★★★★

Zelda is a werebear who lives with her best friend and vampire, Zora, and works at fashion magazine that's not as fabulous as she thought it would be. After lusting after her werewolf neighbor and high school crush for too long, she finally lands a date with him. The only problem? Her fae boss is making her work as a bodyguard for her seemingly charming nephew because Zelda's the only werebear she can latch onto on such short notice.

This short book had me cracking up starting with the opening chapter. I even had a dream that I was a newly christened werebear running with a weretiger and a pack of werewolves after reading a few chapters before going to sleep. It's not the bodice ripper that many of us romance lovers look forward to reading, but I can promise you that this novel will knock your socks straight off. It's a humorous romance novel that I hope becomes a full fledged series because I'd love to see more of Khaw's take on paranormal entities. I love comedy and romance, so it's always fun when it meets and becomes a hilarious book like this.

I love that Zelda is a plus-size woman and that it takes a solid stab at representing the hardships that comes with that. She's judged for her size and there are moments that people openly gawk at her for it. Plus, there's a tense moment where seating isn't created with plus sized society in mind, which can cause embarrassment as well as more public judgement. It's a short, light, and fun story, so it doesn't go in depth on this topic. However, there's enough there that people who have no personal experience with this gets the idea. Zelda is also a bisexual woman of color. Again, the story doesn't go in depth on her experiences as a woman of color or as a bisexual woman, but it's definitely touched upon.

There's a small amount of world building, which includes key information about the supernatural communities that we see throughout the story. We learn information on how being a werebear works in a modern society as well as information on werewolves, vampires, and fae and how they each interact with each other and how they are each kept out of public knowledge. I would love to see a series come out of this, but if it doesn't, I will still be happy because I love the story and how funny it was as well as how it also worked to be relatable.