Melanie
Written on Jun 4, 2014
This is two stories in one. The first story is Christmas Pride about Desiree "Dez" MacDermot, who is New York cop from the Bronx. During a murder investigation, she runs into her former best friend, Mason "Mace" Llewellyn and his sisters, who were her nemeses. Mace is right out of the Navy SEALs and is a pride lion. Dez is a former Marine MP and a human. In this world, most male lions are treated as they are in the animal world, they sign contracts with other prides to breed with the females of other prides. They are treated like the king of the jungle, just like their animal counterparts. Mace wanted no part of this, hence why he joined the Navy.
When he comes home from the SEALs and finds the girl of his dreams in his sister's office and is a cop, he is stunned. She has no idea about shifters and is accusing his sister of murdering one of her pride's breeding males. Eventually, Mace tells her and even shows her his other form. She takes it all very well, even though she is a dog person and isn't real fond of cats. I really enjoyed the cop aspects of this part of the story.
In the second story, Shaw's Tail, we have another lion male, but this one has been a breeding male. He has already fulfilled his contract with the Llewellyn Pride. While he was investigating his brother, around the hyenas, he is severally injured. We learned about the injury in the previous story, when a southern pack of werewolves and Dez help save him. When he wakes up in the hospital, there is a beta she-wolf that came to town with Mace from a southern pack there with him. Ronnie Lee Reed is a wild child with severe commitment phobia. She spent most of her adult life traveling the world, many of the countries she is not allowed back in, with the new alpha female, Sissy Mae. Even college is too much of a commitment for this girl.
Both stories were sexy and funny. There is a wide variety of animal shifters in this series. These shifters also seem very different from many of the other shifters I've read. These shifters seem a lot more like their animals, but without losing their humanity. For example, the male lions tend to be lazy and regal and the females tend treat them like kings. With the wolves, there is a comment about being able to see them "wag their tail" even when they are in human form, when they get extremely excited. I find this very different aspect to the story from most other shift stories.
I enjoyed the narration. The narrator did a great job with the New York and Southern accents. I'm not extremely good with my Bronx and Brooklyn accents, but there were distinct differences between the characters from the two different parts of New York. I thought she also pulled off the snarky and sexy scenes. I will be continuing this series on audio.
