OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: Kimberly Lemming is on an eternal quest to avoid her calling as a main character. She can be found giving the slip to that new werewolf that just blew into town and refusing to make eye contact with a prince of a far-off land. Dodging aliens looking for Earth booty can really take up a girl's time.

But when she’s not running from fate, she can be found writing diverse fantasy romance. Or just shoveling chocolate in her maw until she passes out on the couch. 

 

FORMAT/INFO: That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf was published on February 6th, 2024 by Orbit Books; it was originally self-published on May 16th, 2022. It is 288 pages long and is told in first person from multiple POVs including Brie and Felix. It is available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: It was supposed to be a simple night out at the town festival, but Brie's evening was definitely ruined when a rejected suitor wouldn't leave her alone. Making matters worse, when she threw a drink at his head, she missed and hit the werewolf next to him. And the cherry on top? The drink had been spiked with a love potion, and now the werewolf thinks Brie is his fated mate. But with strange ghouls showing up in the woods and women going missing in the night, there are worse times to have a protective werewolf madly in love with you.

That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf is a fantasy romance that tries to be a comedic take on the fated mate trope, but ends up with muddled messaging. Nowhere is that more prevalent than the opening of the book itself. We meet Brie as she is literally fending off the advances of a man who won't take no for an answer, who insists she'll come around to loving him. Not five minutes later, poor Felix the werewolf is hit with the love potion, falls for Brie, and spends the rest of the book insisting they are supposed to be together. He steps over an incredible amount of personal boundaries in the process, but somehow this wins her affection in the end - which weirdly seems to justify the idea of a pushy, insistent dating approach that the book rejected on its first page. 

To be fair, the author does manage to offset a little of the cringe with POV chapters for Felix, showing he knows he's overstepping and that he literally can't control himself because of the love potion. In those chapters, he does come off as someone who just wants to make sure the person he cares about is happy. 

I think I could have looked past my problems with that mixed messaging if Brie falling in love had felt more earned. Instead, it comes out of nowhere, driven by a night of physical intimacy instead of any kind of real mutual bonding. While Felix is certainly earnest and sweet over the course of the book, I just didn't buy that Brie had developed feelings for someone who had just spent the entire day disregarding any of her own wishes (regardless of whether or not that person was under the influence of magic). 

(And yes, this book is REAL spicy. Tentacles, anyone?) 

CONCLUSION: On the whole, That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf is a quick and easy read. It was fun seeing returning characters, and there's a real sense of camaraderie amongst the women as they band together against the threat to their village. But this is a romance novel, and I simply didn't like the central romance. I will admit, I don't have a fondness for the fated mate trope, so that may have colored my feelings slightly. But after having a fun time with That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon, I was hoping for another diverting read. Unfortunately, I just couldn't get invested in the relationship, leaving me not feeling much of anything at all when the Happily Ever After arrived.