Shelly Laurenston

Livy Kowalski has no time for idiots. When you shapeshift into a honey badger, getting through life's irritants is a finely honed skill. Until she gets stuck housing her nutso cousin and dealing with her dad's untimely and unexplained demise. That's where Vic Barinov comes in - or his house does. Vic can't step outside without coming back to find Livy devouring his honey stash and getting the TV remote sticky. It gets his animal instincts all riled up. But he'll have to woo her at high speed: all hell is breaking loose, and Livy is leading the charge.

Bite Me

danielle bush

Jo H

Series overview added 14.02.20

This author is one of the authors that prove that shifters are far more interesting to me than vampires (which I do still do enjoy immensely). And this series is one of the reasons why I wish so very much there was a proper series review option here on Goodreads as well as one for individual books. I have rated each book on its own 4 stars, but as a series, Pride gets a full 5 stars. A perfect example of the 'whole' is more than the sum total of its separate parts.

I really enjoyed the Magnus Pack trilogy but LOVED this Pride series as I think her writing improved immensely and included more plot and less sex. There's nothing wrong with sex scenes in romance (of course!) but I need more than that to make it a worthwhile read and especially if it's about a bunch of fantastical creatures that can shift into various different animals at will!!! 

These are the main reasons that I love this series; * The author was including POC characters as actual people rather than walking talking stereotypes or tokens way before many others were, and whilst not perfect, it makes her (USA) world seem so much more normal (especially the city settings)... given that they are largely populated with humans that transform into animals!

* Being a cat person, I have a strong preference for the feline breeds of shifter in my books, but I love that she includes so many different species of animal and manages to incorporate many of their animal traits into the human behaviors. I can't recall any shifter books I've read that have done that so well before.

* I also love that she includes many mixed shifter 'hybrids' and has them talking about some of the challenges they faced and has a storyline dedicated to them.

* She has a number of the overtly hyper-masculine overly possessive alphahole types that I usually dislike as heroes... but she continually challenges that nonsense on the page via her heroines, because most of them are just as deadly and/or possessive as the males (some more so!), but at the same time

* She has beta-male heroes who are far from being weak or 'sissies' and

* She is not afraid to make her heroes sometimes look and act totally ridiculous! In particular, Mitch and his 'lion's mane' vanity and his (and the other male lion characters!) juvenile feeding habits are forever imprinted on my brain, and none of it takes away from his sexual appeal.

* Her heroines (any many of the secondary female characters) all have complete lives of their own, many of them very successful in a number of fields; Military, Law Enforcement, STEM, Plumbing (yes! I LOVED that inclusion with Gwen and Blayne) and their vicious hobby of Roller Derby and whilst some of them are a little more 'silly' (Blayne! who may possibly be my favorite FMC but is also the one who it seems gets more dislike from reviewers despite her proven skills and I have to side-eye those people...) none of them are damsels needing the knight in shining armor to come and rescue them. They prove time and time again how much they can take care of themselves and others around them.

* The way she integrates all characters so seamlessly throughout each of the books is fantastic. Most series I've read where each book is the story of a different couple include characters from other books popping up here and there, but in this series, the author manages to include many of the major characters in other books without taking away from the main couple. I love that as it means that many of them never really disappear never to be heard of again.

* The separate and integrated plots throughout most of the series. Each one kept me turning the pages and to me were of equal importance as the romance that was growing between the MCs.

* There's humor abound in romance (rom-coms) but this woman's books are continual outright falling over laugh out loud hilarious to me! Although, it does seem that much of her humor is what puts off some people! Oh well, different strokes and all that!!!  Favorite couple, individual characters... book of the series? I have no idea as I loved them all. And that to me is a sign of a job really well done considering there are 11 different but connected stories in the series overall.

There are a few minor issues I had including the virtual lack of any sense of queerness in the world (and no that doesn't mean they have to include queer MCs in the series), but TBH any others are not worth me spending any time over right now. I may come back again at yet another time to add them. But certainly, the biggest disappointment for me in the series is that it came to an end, which I think was quite abruptly as it seems to me that there is still room for a couple more stories out of this group of shifters. Still, at least I have the Honey Badgers to move on to next, and I CAN'T WAIT.

Bite Me

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