Tag: Urban Fantasy Adventure and Thriller romance

Review:  Badger to the Bone (Honey Badger Chronicles, #3) by Shelly Laurenston

Rating: 4.5⭐️

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. 

Honey Badger Chronicles:

  • Hot and Badgered #1
  • In A Badger Way #2
  • Badger to the Bone #3
  • Breaking Badger #4
  • Born to Be Badger #5
  • To Kill a Badger #6

Buy link

        Badger to the Bone (The Honey Badger Chronicles Book 3)

    

Blurb 

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!

  • Publisher: Kensington Books
  • Publication date: March 31, 2020
  • Language: English
  • Print length: 418 pages
  • Book 3 of 6: The Honey Badger Chronicles

Review:  In A Badger Way (Honey Badger Chronicles, #2) by Shelly Laurenston

Rating: 4.5⭐️

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. 

Honey Badger Chronicles:

Hot and Badgered #1

In A Badger Way #2

Badger to the Bone #3

Breaking Badger #4

Born to Be Badger #5

To Kill a Badger #6

Buy link

        In a Badger Way: A Honey Badger Shifter Romance (The Honey Badger Chronicles Book 2)

    

Blurb 

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.

  • Publisher: Kensington Books
  • Accessibility: Learn more
  • Publication date: March 26, 2019
  • Language: English
  • Print length: 418 pages
  • Book 2 of 6: The Honey Badger Chronicles

Review:  Hot and Badgered (Honey Badger Chronicles, #1) by Shelly Laurenston

Rating: 4.75⭐️

“‘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! 

Honey Badger Chronicles:

Hot and Badgered #1

In A Badger Way #2

Badger to the Bone #3

Breaking Badger #4

Born to Be Badger #5

To Kill a Badger #6

Buy link

        Hot and Badgered: A Honey Badger Shifter Romance (The Honey Badger Chronicles Book 1)

    

Blurb 

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 . . .

  • Publisher: Kensington Books
  • Publication date: March 27, 2018
  • Language: English
  • Print length: 434 pages
  • Book 1 of 6: The Honey Badger Chronicles