Rating: 4.75 stars
Tony has been examining his life in New York and doesn’t like what he sees, a shallow man pursuing his career, without friends or a man to love. Tony is missing his best friend, Jake who is now living with his cowboy in Texas and happier than Tony has ever seen him. So when Tony decides he is due for a change, its to Texas and Jake that he decides to vacation. A vacation that will land him in the middle of a killer’s quest for revenge and into a world of wolf shifters.
Pete Johnson, beta of alpha Kelan’s Wolf Creek pack, is tired of seeing all the shifters around him find their mates while he remains alone. After the madness with the council member gone mad, all he wants to do is buy the bar he manages and settle down. But once more, a killer rises up from the ash of the plot by a Supernatural Council rogue member to threaten all the members of the Wolf Creek pack. The night Tony arrives, someone burns both the bar and Kelan’s Crazy Horse Ranch to the ground, killing humans and shifters alike. During the investigation, Pete meets Tony for the first time and realizes Tony is his mate. When Jake gets critically injured during the blast that brings down the bar, Tony sees something so unreal, so unbelievable, that he thinks he is hallucinating. Both Kelan and Pete’s features start to change and Tony discovers the reality of shifters.
As the killer escalates their plan to make the people involved in the rogue Councilman’s death pay, Pete must make Tony understand they are mates, sooth his concerns over shifters being real, and try to keep him safe until the killer is caught. Not a easy take when Tony is divided between wanting to help and wanting to flee back to New York. Can Pete persuade his mate to stay with him in Texas or will the killer take revenge on all the shifters in Wolf Creek, and their mates as well.
Shifters’ Haven is a series that continues to grow in depth and complexity and Pete’s Persuasion is the best book yet in this terrific series. In fact, I still find it hard to believe that it is only 92 pages long as it has the feel and emotional heft of a much larger book. Pete’s Persuasion continues with the aftermath of the death of the rogue Council member who was killing the mates of shifters who wished to remain hidden from the human world. Now someone is seeking revenge for his death and everyone is a target. I loved the continuity that flows smoothly from one book to the next, with nary a dropped plot point. Lewis never gives us extraneous storyline side trips but instead juggles all the characters and locations masterfully as she maneuvers her characters and the reader towards a goal yet unseen. If a certain element appears, whether human, shifter or Council law, then you can be sure it will figure seamlessly into the plot at some point, even if it takes a book or two to accomplish it.
Another facet of Lewis’ stories that I admire is that there are no throwaway characters. If she mentions someone, then you can be sure they will make another appearance down the line. Tony, Jake’s best friend of 10 years, is first mentioned in Kelan’s Pursuit (Shifters’ Haven #3), but it took four more books until he reappeared as a main character. And there is no such thing as a cookie cutter character in her stories either. These men or shifters laugh, love, and hurt in such a believable fashion that there is never a strain to remember the cast of characters and their relationships to each other, something that can happen with long running series.
A nice element that Lewis works into her shifter universe, is that there is no instant love between mates. There is desire certainly (hot sex too), there is a feeling of completeness and a recognition that each melds with the other but it takes time for the love to form. Her shifters also physically shift instead of a blink of an eye transformation, but there is no physical pain, just a momentary disconnect between the wolf and the man.
And finally, Lewis gives us scenes of such intensity, such fear, that she can make your heart pound and your pulse rate speed up with her action sequences, fight scenes and blazing conflagrations as the burning buildings start coming down around our characters. Really, she does an amazing job with her harrowing descriptions and vivid scenes that you feel like you are there.
So I cannot wait for the next in the series and one of the main reasons is that at the end of this book, the killer is once again on the loose. The plot continues, the anxiety and dread rises with the stakes higher than ever. Shifters’ Haven has me well and truly hooked. You will be too but don’t start here. Go back to the beginning and read the series in the order they were written, which is the only way it will make sense. You are going to love this.
Luke’s Surprise (Shifters’ Haven, #1)
Cody’s Revelation (Shifters’ Haven, #2)
Kelan’s Pursuit (Shifters’ Haven, #3)
Aaron’s Awakening (Shifters’ Haven #4)
Nate’s Deputy (Shifters’ Haven #5) – my review here.
Gregory’s Rebellion (Shifters’ Haven, #6) – read my review here.
Pete’s Persuasion (Shifters’ Haven, #7)
Cover art by Posh Gosh. The covers for this series is lovely but not up to the heights of the Leopard’s Spots series. Still, it pulls in many of the elements of the story and still manages to brand the series from other shifter books.
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 