As a trader who goes from place to place, Cassandra is a little shocked when she arrives in a village looking for evening shelter and winds up in a room with a man bitten by a Raver. Raver or Brethren are his only two choices and Ty, the sworn man of the Duke, doesn’t know which will call to his blood as the moon rises that evening. Cassandra will have to use everything in her arsenal of knowledge if she wants to make it out of the room alive and in one piece. Her abilities will also determine if Ty will be killed, or allowed to live as one of the newly changed. When the evening goes better than expected because of Cassandra’s ability to use pleasure to tame the beast roaring to be let free, the two decide to travel together in search of other brethren. Ty’s Duke, however, has a bond with his sworn man and refuses to allow them to travel alone. Cassandra will have to learn how to trust the Duke, who has secrets of his own, secrets that they all may find useful as they attempt to control Ty’s beast.

This is a story I had to sleep on prior to writing the review. A Walk in the Woods takes on a literal meaning considering the entire story, outside of the first chapter takes place as the three main characters travel through the woods to get help for Ty, who has become one of the newly changed. Cassandra, the guide and obsession for the beast Ty is attempting to control, had to be one of the most giving and laid back woman I’ve read about. Instead of breaking down at the least bit of aggression, she always kept her head and came out pretty much unscathed, which I found enjoyable. Her immediate acceptance and connection with the Duke, who had such a close bond with Ty, also raised her worth in my book. Now what I did eventually take issue with is how often Ty and Cassandra seemed to have sex while Ty was a beast, or in a semi-shifted form. I’m not a prude by a long shot and once or twice I can understand but I really couldn’t grasp Kirra Pierce’s reasons for the excessive amount of coupling while changed. Yes, I understood he was still working to control the beast but it still would have been less redundant if it were more of an uncontrollable occasional impulse, not an orgy of furry sex used more for shock value the necessity.  Overall the book turned out to just a little bit above OK, again due in part to my enjoyment of the kind of woman the heroine turned out to be rather than anything else.