Lauren EskerBesprekingen

A superior shifter novel.

In this world shape-shifting is not caused by a virus or infection, but is a genetic inheritance - though not all members of the same family shift into the same creature, which my mind boggles at. It also boggles at the notion of a man shifting into an arachnid. So far, so normal (for the genre).

Where this differs is the quality and depth of the characterisation and the intricate plot, which at times was very dark, verging on horror.

Definitely an author to follow.½

Well written but the ending is unresolved, makingbit pointless.

This urban fantasy mystery is bursting with interesting characters that enhance a thoroughly good plot.

At best, this collection could be said to be patchy. Even Yoon Ha Lee, whose Ninefox Gambit I devoured last year, felt a little shackled by the "magical pet" theme. That said, two or three of the stories alone are worth the price. Rachel Manija Brown's Watercat Café had a beautifully realised world and thoroughly drew me in. I was very disappointed when it ended. Marie Cardno's How to Get a Girlfriend (When You're a Terrifying Monster) was an entirely delightful curveball. I also enjoyed Beach Dirt on Bare Feet (possibly in part because of the British setting?) and The Mating Call of the Teleporting Warbler, with all the snarky humour and long history of a well-established couple was a sweet ending to the collection.

already but was always encountering the story as unexpected. The double story kept me in heightened awareness. The need for dialect translation grounded the story. The village life descriptions drew me into the setting completely. The story variants channelled me from real to mythical reality. This was beautifully crafted.

Sweet interesting Christmas short story

Now I am gonna have to go back and read the first in the series. =)

I really liked this story. The author lulled you into complacency then added in some pretty gritty scenes. The fem heroine was not annoying. Cool!

Book: TIGER IN THE HOT ZONE by Lauren Esker
Genre: paranormal romantic suspense
Series: Shifter Agents #4
USA Release Date: available now
Source: ARC from author
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Recommended?: Yes, yes, a billion times yes. You’ll get more out of the world building if you’ve read the others, but it absolutely stands alone, and is a fine place to start the series. It is absolutely the best book of the series, and I’ve loved each one a little more than the one before, so it’s a high bar to reach.

Review:

(Let’s just get the shallow out of the way first: holy hell, that cover model is smoking hot.)

This is much more of a thriller than a romance, though there is plenty of romance, too; for me, the balance is perfect. Peri and Noah have been subtly flirting for awhile as they keep running into each other at scenes where Noah is having to cover up the truth from Peri; we’re told this more than shown it, and my only complaint about the romance is that we didn’t get to see more of this previous slow build before they’re giving into their attraction, first for sex and then for a serious relationship. (This complaint is limited to the build of the romance itself; starting the book any earlier would have slowed down the thriller plot, and that would have been a bigger shame than missing out on some of the romantic development.)

I love both Peri and Noah as characters, together and apart, especially when they end up spending a little time with Peri’s past. I don’t know if the reveal about where she grew up was supposed to be a surprise or not; I figured it out very early on, but I grew up in a slightly similar background, so it is possible that I am extra sensitive to plots that have it coming. And the way Peri uses her prosthetic running leg in her adventures is fantastic. Watching her learn to rely on other people, to trust them despite the huge lies they’ve been telling her (understandably to protect their world) was fantastic, and I thought she changed in a very believable way.

Noah is a particularly compelling character, and probably my new favorite out of the entire series. He’s a black man who became a Shifter Agent because his parents started the entire organization, and he thinks it’s what they want for him, but he’s not particularly happy. In part because unlike the field agents who get to save lives, all he does is tell lies and destroy them to discredit humans who have seen too much. That would be a much worse position. His background was wonderful, too, the reasons he took himself out of the field, and how he struggles now that he’s been forced to return. He, too, grows throughout the story, and when we finally get to see his parents, their relationship with each other and with their son is warm and wonderful and exactly what I was hoping to see.

I don’t want to give away the plot, because it is a rolicking adventure, but it is generally very well paced, face and interesting. Things do slow down a little during the middle, when Peri and Noah end up alone together and then dealing with some of Peri’s past, but though I normally would have been put off by that de-escalation, this time it mostly felt like a nice little breather before the excitement of the plague story picked up again.

I loved this book, and how it expanded the world of this series, and I can’t wait for more. The ending itself is cheesy as hell, which is probably the lowest point in the story for me, but the rest of the story is so great I can’t really bring myself to care much about that ending. I love the world building and the characters, love the plot and the new shifters, love how much is answered by the end and how much is left open (though that means the wait for more is going to be excruciating), and I highly recommend you read this book and this series.

(Final bit of shallow: Noah is so hot, y’all, and so RIDICULOUS. He is a tiger shifter, and he wears a leather jacket with fucking tiger stripes. HOW HAVE YOU EVER KEPT A SECRET IN YOUR LIFE, NOAH? HOW? I love him so much.)

A fun and action-filled instalment in this paranormal romance series. Peri is a frustrated journalist making a living as a conspiracy theory blogger, and studiously avoiding the childhood spent in a cult that cost her a leg; Noah is a tiger shapeshifter working for a secret government agency tasked with making sure that Peri doesn't stumble on the truth. I think you can guess what develops between them. Esker is good at mixing romance and action for her diverse cast of characters, even if some of the narrative choices can fall on the spectrum from clichéd to tacky (the early stages of Peri and Noah's relationship are a little rushed; every mention of Noah's leather jacket with tiger stripes on the arms made me wince). A quick, enjoyable read.½

Recommended?: Yes, so much yes, all the yes! Amazing main character in Jen Cho, fantastic adventure, well-written details, and great worldbuilding mean this is a fast, fun read well worth visiting again and again.

Review:

While I do think you can read this as a standalone novel, one of my favorite parts is the depth it adds to the world already established in the first two Shifter Agents books. What we saw in HANDCUFFED TO THE BEAR and GUARD WOLF was an interesting and nuanced shapeshifter world that even though it had its dangers, they were generally from familiar places (at least familiar to the characters): well-known shapeshifter types or humans obsessed with their healing abilities. DRAGON’S LUCK blows that wide open, because it blows open the idea of what kind of shapeshifters exist, what kind of powers they have — adding dragons to the mix is fun and entertaining, but I don’t think I would have enjoyed it as much had I not read the other books first. Part of the fun is feeling settled in the world, and then having my view of it changed right along with the characters.

Jen Cho is by far the strongest part of the book to me. She is amazing; smart and funny and strong and brave. I love how Esker writes details that drive home how different shifters experience the world in different ways. A gecko, for example, moves through the world in a way a wolf never could, and vice versa. And Jen having to explore a ship in gecko form was an excellent way to highlight the strengths and weakness of her form. Jen is independent to a fault, and one of the reasons I had a hard time putting the book down was because I was so caught up in her story, how she navigated needing help with not trusting Lucky, how when she did start to trust him, she was still torn between how much she wanted to tell him and how much she could actually tell him.

I liked the romance between Jen and Lucky well enough, but I think I didn’t like Lucky as much as I could have because I had just read GUARD WOLF before this, and the hero of that book is the disabled werewolf I’ve always wanted in a story. So for very unfair reasons, Lucky fell a little flat, and even more when I saw a couple of the twists in his story coming.

As with the first two books, DRAGON’S LUCK plays with some delightful tropes, from Undercover Agents to Fake Girlfriend, and Esker approaches them with a deft hand. I can’t really get into the details of the other things I loved without going into major spoilers, so I will end by saying that this book was a joy to read. The pacing was fast and fun, and I never wanted to put it down; I pretty much devoured it in one sitting, and wanted more when I hit the last page. Jen Cho is a joy and a delight forever, and I can’t wait to see more of her back with the rest of the agency. There are some plot points revealed during this book that have opened up a great number of future stories, and I am so excited to see what comes next! I’d be counting the days until the next book, but I’m afraid that will make me sad, because unless I can read it in, oh, the next thirty seconds, it is far too long to wait.

However, that means you have time to go read all three books AND the short story “Chasing Bigfoot,” and I strongly recommend you do so immediately.

Note: DRAGON’S LUCK is the first of the series not to include a BBW female main character. Neither of the women in HANDCUFFED TO THE BEAR or GUARD WOLF read as very fat to me, but they at different times do think of themselves as fat and are self-conscious about that. Which is fine, and can be realistic, but is not my favorite part of stories about fat women. It was nice to see Jen be confident about her body, but I do wish we would have seen more of that from the fat characters, too. (And when I double checked at Amazon, only HANDCUFFED TO THE BEAR appears to be labeled as BBW now, though I would have sworn GUARD WOLF was too when I grabbed my copy. Ah well.)

A shapeshifting koala social worker falls in love with a wolf shifter with PTSD from childhood abuse who works for the FBI. They meet cute when he brings her a box of abandoned wolf shifter puppies. The worldbuilding is interesting and there’s a large cast of shifter characters, presumably all candidates for other romance novels focusing on them (there’s already one before this, about a bear shifter and a non-shifter human). The protagonists are immediately attracted to one another and communicate well, though both are uncertain of their ability to succeed in a relationship. The barriers to the relationship are otherwise external and include some grim shifter-abusing people—the ultimate source of the shifter puppies. Well-written enough that if you liked the description you will probably like the book.

This is a quick, entertaining paranormal romance read, the plot of which is largely summed up by the title—in Handcuffed to the Bear, Casey wakes up naked in the woods and finds that she's been cuffed to a similarly naked stranger, Jack. They have to work together to make it out alive. Esker does a good job on the action-adventure side of the plot, and in having the romance build slowly and believably (there's no stopping for sex while they're running for their lives, for instance), and the cast of characters is refreshingly diverse along a number of axes. There were a couple of points where I found myself squinting at the dialogue, though—for instance, when was the last time you heard a person in real life address a group of people as "you fools"? Still, a light, escapist read.