Melanie
Written on Mar 23, 2018
I forget how I stumbled upon Celia Kyle’s Grayslake series, but it is a series I truly loved. So when the opportunity came to review the first book in the Shifter Rogues series on audio, I jumped on it. I’ll be honest, I didn’t read up on this series at all. I saw the author’s name and decide to just give it a go. I was also not familiar with this narrator, but more on her later.
So this series is about a group of guys that work for Shifter Operations Command, Team One. SHOC is a group that are loners and have a tendency to break the law. Most were given the option of join SHOC or go to prison. Basically, use your powers for good protecting shifters or else. Team One was the best of the best at what they did, but they also have the most personality issues.
In this book, we follow Declan, a wolf with a past, like most of SHOC. He’s done some things he’s not proud of. Those things really come back to haunt him in this story.
We also meet Abby. She’s a cougar, who was orphaned at a young and age and raised by a group of seal shifters. Because of her foster family, she is much better at swimming than most of her species. But she also has no love lost from her foster family. Once she was old enough, she went out on her own and been alone ever since.
So, Abby is an accountant. That is until she stumbles on an account that doesn’t look quite right. The only problem is, that this particular account belongs to an anti-shifter group. When she sets off an alert by accessing a particularly sensitive digital file, things blow up all around her.
This story is full of action and humor as Abby and Declan hide from the anti-shifter group while trying to hunt them down. The help of Declan’s team and brother add a lot of humor to the story. I really like Declan’s team. They are a hoot. I’m not a fan of the big boss, a black mamba shifter. I do like his immediate supervisor, a bear shifter.
There are some moments that I really wanted to throttle both Abby and Declan. There is the whole, “I don’t want a mate” thing. There are also some “too stupid to live” moments. But overall, I really enjoyed the story. I can’t wait to get to know this team better. I’m really excited to get to the next book about Cole, a tiger shifter. I really enjoyed him in this book.
Narration
As I said above, this is my first audiobook with Mia Nichols narrating. I think she did a good job. I liked all of her voices. I think she picked great voices for each character. I think her pace and tone are well done. I have to say that the way she voiced Director Quade, the black mamba mentioned earlier. He gets quite the hiss in his voice when angry.
**I like to thank the publisher for providing me with a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.