Review for Blind Heat by Nara Malone

 Allie is determined to build an ordinary life. To survive, she needs to be the sort of woman no one notices. She has a generic job, lives in a generic apartment, and thinks maybe one day she’ll find an ordinary Joe who wants an average Jane sort of woman.

Marcus is anything but an ordinary Joe. Even if humans don’t know he’s a shifter and millennial being, he’s the sort of man women notice. A night of passion spent with Marcus is a night any female, human or Pantherian, won’t forget.

But Allie does forget. She repeatedly fails to recognize him even after an intense sexual encounter. Marcus discovers the source of her problem—face blindness, a genetic disorder with no cure. And he decides to use erotic rituals to teach her to see with more than her eyes. What he doesn’t count on is Allie seeing past the man—and recognizing the beast within.

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Nara Malone has created a paranormal world where shifters are on the brink of extinction and where humans are experimenting to create their own kind of otherworldly creatures.  The set-up of this story is unique and intriguing but gets a bit bogged down at times under the weight of the large cast of characters and the secrets and unexpected truths that come out during the story.  It's an enjoyable and suspenseful read that requires you to pay attention to fully understand all the aspects of the story.

Allie's had an unconventional upbringing and fears of her past have kept her from forming attachments, as well as a disability of the brain that causes difficulty in facial recognition.  This is a unique ailment to befall a main character and brings an interesting aspect to the story.  At the start of the story Allie seems a bit child-like, a lost waif whose answer to everything is to run.  Being with Marcus forces her to mature into the woman she is at the end.  She now stands her ground and demands answers and is fully accepting of who and what she is.

Marcus has the weight of his people's obligations on his shoulders.  He's doing everything he can to see that they don't become extinct, putting his life in jeopardy every night.  Meeting Allie brings a ray of hope to his and his people's future and he does everything he can to keep her safe as she searches for and learns the truth about who and what she is.  His form of teaching leads to many erotic encounters, very exotic and creative sexual interludes that made for an even stronger bond than that between just two humans.

There are lots of secondary characters with all of them being immensely likable.  The glimpses we get of them show many interesting possibilities for future stories.  Blind Heat was chock full of romance and action, and while it can be read on its own, I think things would've been a bit clearer from the start if the first book were read before starting this.  I look forward to more stories in this series resulting from the secrets revealed here and think fans of the paranormal will find much to satisfy them.

My rating for this is a B-

*I received this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.