Violet Vaughn's novella "Aaron: Mating Fever (Rocked by the Bear Book 4)" was the first tale this reader read from the author, and one might think the fourth book in a series would have a well defined plot and characters. While protagonist Olivia and werebear Aaron were kind of likeable enough, this reader never truly attached to them and cared enough to root for either. They were just kind of "there". Where was the flash one might expect from a rock star? Other than a few sentences showing girls rushing to flirt with drummer Aaron, none was evident. No shifting or real evidence of his bear-side... readers are told Aaron is a werebear and his physical description does denote a powerful man, but we are never really shown his bear-self. Perhaps the answers were in the missing chapter one of the story; like another reviewer stated a year ago, there is a Chapter 1 heading, turn the page and you are in Chapter 2. Perhaps the missing chapter gave an overview of the previous three books, which would have really helped. Comments were made that Olivia was also a werebear, but apparently it would only be activated in her once she was bitten... I think? It was really hard to empathize for either character when it felt like so much information was missing. Aaron was presented as a 'bad boy rock star" yet he never spoke like a bad boy in public... it is understandable that he would show his softer side to his intended mate, Olivia, but the few times he addressed others, he still seemed extremely tame for a 'bad boy'. Olivia seemed snobby and prudish, which was apparently to show her control-freak nature and that her last boyfriend had emotionally hurt her, but only made her an unlikeable character to this reader. Both main characters were pretty one-dimensional in presentation. The one bright spot in this tale for this reader was the very brief - too brief! - scenes with the adorable elderly neighbor ladies. They gave comic relief and heart to their scenes, and I really wanted to know more about them. But the main characters? Eh, not so much. This short story read more like a few scenes from a larger storyline, like this reader was plopped into the middle of a story with no recap of what had happened previously, and honestly left no desire for me to read the first three books to fill in the missing pieces. Technically a stand alone, but not worth the asking price, in this reader's view. As a writer and former Masters student, all of my writing instructors stated to always, always, always give some kind of a recap to important events that happened in the previous stories. There was none here. As a reader, it isn't always guaranteed I'll purchase and read a series from the first story... it depends on the blurb catching my attention or the cover image captivating me, so recaps are devoured to bring me up to speed. This story left me feeling short-changed and not wanting more, which is a real shame because it did appear Vaughn put some effort into editing, leaving very few spelling, grammar or punctuation errors. ** Review originally posted to Amazon reviews on DATE and Goodreads on the same date. **
