Shelly Laurenston’s world of shape-shifters is hilarious, sexy, often casually violent and always absolutely fascinating. The latest novel in the series, Hot and Badgered, features a vicious, dangerous honey badger shifter and the amiable grizzly bear shifter who can’t resist her. Who knew romance could involve so much mayhem and so many laugh-out-loud moments?
Honey badger shifter Charlie Taylor-MacKilligan and her two younger half-sisters are each uniquely talented and trained to kill. They’ve had each other’s backs since they were children. When someone attacks Charlie in Switzerland, she knows her estranged criminal father must be at the heart of the plot. She escapes to a nearby hotel room where a big, handsome grizzly shifter helps her escape. Charlie and her sisters head for New York City, where their father is allegedly in the city morgue. Unfortunately, the morgue has the wrong man, a discovery that Charlie finds intensely irritating.
Holed up in a cousin’s safe house, the sisters discover their cousin is friends with Berg Dunn, the grizzly shifter who saved Charlie in Switzerland. Berg was impressed with Charlie’s handling of her would-be assassins and wants to spend more time with her. He finds the sisters a safe house on his street in an all-bear neighborhood. The three sisters fascinate and delight the bears, especially since Charlie bakes when stressed and the bears can gorge themselves on her cakes and pies. Plus, she bakes with honey. It’s a win-win situation—now Charlie and her sisters have multiple big human protectors who are 1,000 pounds of pure mean when shifted into their bear forms.
For the first time, the MacKilligan sisters aren’t alone, and while having a gang of bears defending them is unusual, they kind of like it. Plus, Charlie more than likes Berg and the feeling is mutual. The two make the most of their stolen moments together in between fending off murder attempts, kidnapping attempts and the sisters’ introduction to the world of NYC shape-shifters. There are fisticuffs in a hockey rink, a brawl with female wolverines, a furious Charlie taking down two of the best enforcers in the shifter military unit and other violent, slapstick escapades. The plot zips along with surprising twists, turns and fearless honey badger bravery. That the almost nonstop action also allows for excellent character development and lots of snarky humor is a testament to Laurenston’s skills.
Lois Dyer writes from her home in Port Orchard, Washington.
