Another entertaining read in Laurenston’s Magnus Pack series. Go Fetch features Miki, the hacker/bar owner bestie of wolfshifter Sara. Sara now lives in California with her Alpha mate. But Miki has unresolved issues with Conall Víga-Feilan , who knew he was hooked as soon as he laid eyes on his Alpha’s best friend, the pint-sized Miki Kendrick in Texas.
Their chemistry and dynamics are hilariously different from the previous couple but it’s so good that it keeps the reader happy and invested in their relationship.
The drama and ongoing storyline of pack issues is not well defined or given enough foundation here. It seems to carry over into the third book. But there’s little framework for this intense plot and species plotting.
Had the author laid out a trilogy wide storyline that encapsulated this arc and events this would have been a more compelling and well grounded series and novel.
It’s still highly entertaining and recommended.Just wishful thinking on my part.
How much trouble can one small female be to a modern-day shapeshifting Viking? Well…it really depends on local gun laws.
Conall Víga-Feilan, direct descendent of Viking shifters, never thought he’d meet a female strong enough to be his mate. He especially didn’t think a short, viper-tongued human would ever fit the bill. But Miki Kendrick isn’t some average human. With an IQ off the charts and a special skill with weapons of all kinds, Miki brings the big blond pooch to his knees—and keeps him there.
Miki’s way too smart to ever believe in love and she knows a guy like Conall could only want one thing from her. But with the Pack’s enemies on her tail and a few days stuck alone with the one man who makes her absolutely wild, Miki is about to discover how persistent one Viking wolf can be.
I’m continuing my journey through Shelly Laurenston’s catalog and started in on the Magnus Pack trilogy as it’s focused on three closely knit girlfriends. Each has her own story, only one of which is a shifter but there are shifters in each connected story.
Things to consider first. These are sexy, sexy tough women and the stories are full of scenes that flow accordingly. If you’re looking for sweet content, you might want to look elsewhere.
Considering my favorite series is Laurenston’s honey badger series I really enjoyed it. IYKYK.
The first character and girlfriend is a heavily scarred, damaged, pain-filled woman, Sara Morrighan. With scars across her face and a limp from a badly damaged leg when she and her dad were attacked by mountain lions and she was left for dead.
Sara, along with her best friends, Miki Kendric and Angelina Santiago, keep an eye out for each other, keeping each other safe and supporting them. Especially Sara, raised by a crazy grandmother and has an employer/surrogate father, Marrec, owner of a local motorcycle shop.
But the small Texas town has secrets. Sara’s life is about to change, she’s getting aggressive and her leg is still full of pain.
Then a group of people on motorcycles rides into town. Zack, one of them, shows an immediate reaction to Sara. One that’s returned.
This is a very good fast paced story about someone who doesn’t know what she is. And is about to find out the hard way. There’s shifter battles, tons of great sex scenes and wonderful chemistry between characters that makes the instant lust realistic.
The three women are hilarious together. The sisterhood is alive and well and relatable here. We absolutely believe these women grew up together and know each other inside and out. The dialogue is amazing.
Some world building feels under explored as does the shifter universe here. But on the individual level, it’s exciting and sexy storytelling.
What’s an Alpha Male to do when he meets the Alpha Female of his dreams? Step one, hide all sharp objects.
All Zach Sheridan ever wanted was to become Alpha Male of his Pack and to be left alone. What he definitely didn’t need in his life was some needy female demanding his attention. What he never saw coming was the vicious, scarred female who not only demanded his attention but knew exactly how to get it.
Sara Morrighan knew this was the best she could expect from her life. Good friends. A nice place to live. And a safe job. But when Zach rode into her small Texas town with his motorcycle club, Sara knew she wanted more. She knew she wanted him. But after one sexy encounter with her dream biker, everything is starting to change. Her body. Her strength. That new thing she’s doing with the snarling. Even her best friends are starting to wonder what’s going on with her.
But this is only the beginning. Sara’s about to find out her life was meant for so much more. And Zach’s about to find true love with the one woman who makes him absolutely insane.
My Kind of Town by Shelly Laurenston is a paranormal shifter romance that was previously written for and published in another anthology. I didn’t read that one. And it was the cover and the author’s fantastic honey badger series that drew me here.
I liked this but found that it’s the promise of its elements for future books the most intriguing. The main couple is engaging if not fully explored.
Thats primarily the issue with this story. Great ideas, an interesting storyline with fascinating magical characters and elements but none of those are really explained or given any meaningful foundation here. A coven with their powerful dark magic and found family ? Absolutely to know more.
A dying coven with different powers and magical abilities? Ok, so what happened to them?
The story offers up more questions than answers about the characters and never answers the original story plot about what brought Emma Luchessi, the Long Island witch down to the southern town of Smithville.
That gets forgotten totally.
So yes, I enjoyed it. Saw so much promise, and hope that the author ventures back to Smithville to finish what this story begins.
Pretty much instant sex, instant lust, well, you get it.
Emma Luchessi may be a witch from Long Island but she is used to her life being quiet. Some may even say boring. She doesn’t mind boring. Boring is safe. Calm. Peaceful. Like beige. One doesn’t get into trouble with beige. But a wrong turn off a southern highway is about to turn Emma’s beige life into everything but boring.
Kyle Treharne’s a good ol’ boy with a sheriff’s badge and a difficult population to manage. He wishes he had to worry about gangs and drugs and car-jackings. Instead, he has to worry about big cats fighting with wolves, bears fighting over honey, and hyenas fighting with everyone. And now, out of nowhere, he’s got a human outsider riling up all the locals by asking too many questions. She’s just so paranoid. And doesn’t trust Kyle a lick. These city gals. They just don’t know how to relax, do they?
Of course, Kyle is a big cat. He knows how to relax and he’d be more than willing to help Emma learn how. He’d be willing to help Emma do all sorts of things if she’d just give him half a chance.
But it turns out Emma coming to Smithville isn’t a simple accident. She’s been brought here and she’s bringing change and danger right along with her. Lucky for Emma, Kyle and the rest of the town like a bit of danger…
This story was previously available in the Sun, Sand and Sex anthology.
Books 4 through 6 (to date) focus in on Max’s childhood friends and basketball teammates. These females are also dangerous honey badgers and have been a part of a tight knit group of friends that have run their own small time operations since their school days. It been Max, Streep, Mads, Nelle, and Tock. Through crime and punishment (often with Charlie as backup and safety for the younger girls).
This is Mads book, and along with the other teammates, get hooked up with the Malone brothers, Keane, Finn, and Shay ,Siberian Tigers, who are searching for the people who killed their father. These Tiger shifters are also related to Max, Stevie and Charlie as Nat, their younger sister turns out to be half honey badger and a half McKilligan. Complicated relationships introduced as well as some awkward dynamics during the last fantastic story .
Laurenston weaves tightly packed, violent action scenes and densely layered storylines into developing new found family bonds and growing group relationships. The “Black Malones” tigers start out emotionally stunted and reactive yet during intense interactions and small one to one conversations, each Malone exhibits surprising emotions and hidden depths.
And while the focus is on Mads, and her interactions with her awful family and the growing one with Finn, the strengths of this series, the MacKilligan sisters (Charlie, Max and Stevie) still have impactful moments and roles to play here.
As do others. So many new and familiar characters here , beautifully detailed and engaging in their own personalities. It just one more reason I can’t get enough of this series.
There’s an overall plot and mystery that seems to be going through the next section of books. It’s a really great one. I can’t wait to see how it’s explained.
Remember these books are gory, violent and murderous. Blood and body parts everywhere. FYI.
Highly recommended.
I really like the covers for the series. Great work. Eye catching and character related.
It’s instinct that drives Finn Malone to rescue a bunch of hard battling honey badgers. The Siberian tiger shifter just can’t bear to see his fellow shifters harmed. But no way can Finn have a houseful of honey badgers when he also has two brothers with no patience. Things just go from bad to worse when the badgers rudely ejected from his home turn out to be the only ones who can help him solve a family tragedy. He’s just not sure he can even get back into the badgers’ good graces. Since badgers lack graces of any kind . . .
Mads knows her teammates aren’t about to forgive the cats that were so rude to them, but moody Finn isn’t so bad. And he’s cute! The badger part of her understands Finn’s burning need to avenge his father’s death—after all, vengeance is her favorite pastime. So Mads sets about helping Finn settle his family’s score, which has its perks, since she gets to avoid her own family drama. Besides, fighting side by side with Finn is her kind of fun—especially when she can get in a hot and heavy snuggle with her very own growling, eye-rolling, and utterly irresistible kitty-cat . . .
“Filled with high-octane action, some serious snark, and a plethora of humor.. the resulting madcap adventures are sure to please series fans.”
Badger to the Bone, the 3rd in the MacKilligan sisters “group” of this series. Now we get to Max, the middle sister and the only full blooded honey badger of the three sisters.
Max “Kill It Again” MacKilligan’s Asian honey badger mother is in prison doing hard time for robbery after their father left her and others caught in Russia after the theft went wrong. She’s been with Charlie since she was young.
Her personality has been described as family first and psychopathically dangerous.
She smiles a lot. Apparently that goes with her being a honey badger. They are a violent, vicious breed despite their size.
This takes Max on quite the journey, one that sees her saving someone unexpectedly, taking on a new albeit temporary career, and chasing down criminals, her father and family alike with vicious zest and a ton of weaponry.
Max is unapologetically who she is. Violent, often aggressive, naked and even murderous. And the author has created her in such a way that it meshes absolutely perfectly with her animal instincts and shifter side. She is a honey badger, no matter what form she is in. She’s not human and that realistically tracks here.
And while her other two sisters might be ambivalent at times about parts of their own shifter instincts and abilities, Max has none of those here.
I absolutely howled in parts at certain scenes, and they were both when Max was all honestly and truly honey badger. And deadly.
The next story starts with side characters and they are great. I’m sure I’ll enjoy those greatly. But Max? She’s fantastic. And I look forward to seeing her and Zé Vargas, the cat shifter again in upcoming novels.
Another winner!
I really like the covers for the series. Great work.
She’s the woman he’s been hired to kidnap. But ZeZé Vargas has other ideas . . . like getting them both out of this nightmare alive. Just one problem. She’s crazy. Certifiably. Because while he’s plotting their escape, the petite Asian beauty is plotting something much more deadly . . .
Max “Kill It Again” MacKilligan has no idea what one of her own is doing with all these criminal humans until she realizes that Zé has no idea who or what he is. Or exactly how much power he truly has.
But Max is more than happy to bring this handsome jaguar shifter into her world and show him everything he’s been missing out on. A move that might be the dumbest thing she’s ever done once she realizes how far her enemies will go to wipe her out. Too bad for them Zé is willing to do whatever it takes to keep her alive . . . and honey badgers are just so damn hard to kill!
A 6 book series, stories 1 through 3 focus on the foundation family of the three MacKilligan sisters. All three have the same criminal loser and absentee father a honey badger shifter who goes finds female companions like he does trouble, often leaving behind his children (from different mothers). Who then have to deal with his problems as adults.
The first book centers around the oldest, Charlie Taylor-MacKilligan, a wolf/honey badger shifter who has been the caretaker for her sisters since her mother died. Now they’ve settled into a sort of normality (for them) in a bear shifter neighborhood in a rental house. And Charlie’s got a bonded relationship with a grizzly bear shifter.
But all the events in that book sets off a ripple effect that continues here in Stevie’s story. Stevie is the youngest, and the one who has the most issues. She’s brilliant, a certified genius. She’s got mental health issues, starting with extreme anxiety and depression that can cause her to spiral and lose control of her shift. A concern when she’s a honey badger/tiger shifter hybrid. The weird mixture of her father’s genes adds to her ability to do some pretty spectacular stuff.
And for , honestly , some of the best scenes in the book, as well as in the last.
Laurenston plays with the juxtaposition of how superficially Stevie’s perceived against the reality of what Stevie actually is. Or is capable of. This happens over and over. With multiple people. And I love it. That expectations are often wrong when taken on a simplistic level.
Of course, this is the MacKilligan sisters, so we get all three and their often hilarious dynamics, fast paced and brutal action, and powerful scenes with full on snarky, clever, and often engaging dialogue.
Shen, the Panda bodyguard who’s the love interest is vastly different and great in his unique role. He grows throughout the book and into the next.
If I had an issue, it’s that Stevie kept making excuses for the father, a vile being. I hope it doesn’t take six books to bring him down.
This is a definite pleasure to read. And one I’m happy to share.
Petite, kind, brilliant, and young, Stevie is nothing like the usual women bodyguard Shen Li is interested in. Even more surprising, the youngest of the lethal, ball-busting, and beautiful MacKilligan sisters is terrified of bears. But she’s not terrified of pandas. She loves pandas.
Which means that whether Shen wants her to or not, she simply won’t stop cuddling him. He isn’t some stuffed Giant Panda, ya know! He is a Giant Panda shifter. He deserves respect and personal space. Something that little hybrid is completely ignoring.
But Stevie has a way of finding trouble. Like going undercover to take down a scientist experimenting on other shifters. For what, Shen doesn’t want to know, but they’d better find out. And fast. Stevie might be the least violent of the honey badger sisters, but she’s the most dangerous to Shen’s peace of mind. Because she has absolutely no idea how much trouble they’re in . . . or just how damn adorable she is.
“‘So let me sum up-we’ve got one vote for total annihilation and one vote for forcing them to join the hockey team. Am I correct?’ “Yes, “ both females replied.”
Author Shelly Laurenston, who’s quoted above from this hilarious and highly entertaining book, has written many popular novels and series, none of which I’ve read until now. After reading this, I’m going to start through this writer’s inventory like a cat in a catnip patch. I’m mean there’s a porcupine scene that can have me giggling in crowded places just thinking about it.
You don’t have to have read any preceding books or series to understand what this is about. It’s so great, the characters are so vividly written, the plotting and locations are written with detail and a eye for creativity that makes this a book that you can’t put down and full of characters that are rich in family love while being absolutely crazy and dangerous.
I’m talking about the MacKilligan shifter family of honey badgers, which spans the world. From their base in Scotland to the USA where the MacKilligan sisters are, and further out, this wild, often criminal family is the most enduring, entertaining and enterprising group of shifters I’ve met in a long time.
The core group is the three sisters of the MacKilligan family, oldest Charlie Taylor-MacKilligan who is a honey badger/wolf hybrid, then followed by Max “Kill It Again” MacKilligan who is all honey badger and perhaps psychopathic killer, and finally the younger sister, the unstable uber brilliant genius who has certain mental health issues, Stevie. Stevie who’s honey badger and tiger. A found family with an absent loser criminal father who has repeatedly gotten them into deep debt and international criminal troubles and with their hybrid status a lack of respect and support elsewhere.
They have been brought up learning to take care of themselves, fighting for their lives in every way possible. I’m talking arsenals.
They, due to criminal shenanigans by their father once again, end up meeting with a grizzly bear shifter family. The Dunns, a triplet set of siblings into protecting and honey.
Honestly, it’s fabulous. There’s an entire bear shifter town that’s amazing. I want to go there. There’s jackals, a shady wolverine pal sort of, and more relatives than anything.
It’s hilarious, imaginative, the action sequences and battles are fierce! Bloody fun and paranormal wild in the extreme.
But the core family love is locked in, the family dynamic is believable and compelling. And the dialogue is sparking intelligent and downright entertaining while also making the reader understand the characters and what’s driving them emotionally.
Honestly, why am I so late to all this?
Another 3am in the morning read and fabulous finish. Highly recommended!
The “hot and humorous” debut of the action-packed shapeshifter series from the New York Times bestselling author of the Pride novels (USAToday.com).
It’s not every day that a beautiful naked woman falls out of the sky and lands face-first on grizzly shifter Berg Dunn’s hotel balcony. Definitely they don’t usually hop up and demand his best gun. Berg gives the lady a grizzly-sized t-shirt and his cell phone, too, just on style points. And then she’s gone, taking his XXXL heart with her. By the time he figures out she’s a honey badger shifter, it’s too late.
Honey badgers are survivors. Brutal, vicious, ill-tempered survivors. Or maybe Charlie Taylor-MacKilligan is just pissed that her useless father is trying to get them all killed again—and won’t even tell her how. Protecting her little sisters has always been her job, and she’s not about to let some pesky giant grizzly protection specialist with a network of every shifter in Manhattan get in her way. Wait. He’s trying to help? Why would he want to do that? He’s cute enough that she just might let him tag along—that is, if he can keep up . . .
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 