It's a cute little novella. The secret friends to secret lovers dynamic on behalf of the two different cultures of their two different shifter races was quite fun. And the amount of effort that the both of them put into learning not only each other as individuals but also each other's cultural customs was gorgeous.

I really wish this was a full novel, because it easily could've been. The timespan of the story and the amount of time skips to cover it was unfortunate. We only really got to see the moment of changes, but barely anything in between. I would be eager to see how they decide to navigate their new relationship, or see them meet each other's folks and friends, or see such-and-such moment of acceptance.... But we don't. We just skip right over it all. I was rather saddened by that loss. And by the loss of so many potential mundane moments that help make relationships feel real and deep.

But, the leads were so cute and healthy with each other. They communicated with each other often and promptly. And we quickly caught on that the bear shifter Todd was a softy and romantic, while penguin shifter Lewis was spunky and fervent. The lines that were always drawn about what traits were attributed to what shifter race were blurred... and they took it in stride.

But I admit, that by expanding it into an actual novel, there definitely would need to be a more developed tension and rising-falling action. In its current form, it exists as a nice, short, fluffy (and yes, spicy) read. In the current form, the characters are developed fairly well even through the time skips, but are missing growth arcs that honestly would've felt very disjointed (and would've been mostly telling instead of showing) due to the set up of the narrative through the timeframe.

So while I do think this story could've been a full novel, I think that, for the most part, the right choices were made for its telling as a novella.