Title: St
ray
Author: Rachel Vincent
Synopsis from Goodreads: “There are only eight breeding female werecats left . . . And I’m one of them.
I look like an all-American grad student. But I am a werecat, a shape-shifter, and I live in two worlds.
Despite reservations from my family and my Pride, I escaped the pressure to continue my species and carved out a normal life for myself. Until the night a Stray attacked.
I’d been warned about Strays — werecats without a Pride, constantly on the lookout for someone like me: attractive, female, and fertile. I fought him off, but then learned two of my fellow tabbies had disappeared.
This brush with danger was all my Pride needed to summon me back . . . for my own protection. Yeah, right. But I’m no meek kitty. I’ll take on whatever — and whoever — I have to in order to find my friends. Watch out, Strays — ’cause I got claws, and I’m not afraid to use them . . .”
My Review: It took me a while to pick up this book because I have heard not so good things about it in reviews. I am also a teacher, but I work part time in a bookstore and when I went to look up this book I found it in the romance section. I am usually a fantasy fiction, paranormal person, but not full out cheesy romance novels (no offense to romance novel lovers, just not my style) so I was a little hesitant but, I read Rachel Vincent’s young adult series Soul Screamers and really enjoyed it so I thought if I liked that I would give her Shifters series a shot. I have to say after reading it I don’t really know why it is in the romance section of the bookstore. There is some romance in there, but no more than any other fantasy fiction so I am not sure why it would not be in that section of the store at all!
Anyways, the book was great!! The only sections of the book that were slow to me where some of the sections describing things, although I do understand why they have to be in there, I am just not a very patient person (I am working on that). I do like this take on shifters because they do have special abilities but they are not immortal which somehow makes them feel more real. The characters do shift into “were-cats” but it is a more natural realistic way of shifting, they don’t just go poof and are in cat form.
I also liked how hard-headed Faythe was, being a stubborn person myself I did like to see her struggle to let people in and help her. That may sound weird, but I like that she is not a “girly-girl” and is comfortable being on of the guys (and is actually fighting for that). The book is fast paced and kept me wanting to read on to see what would happen.
The only warning I would give would be that Rachel Vincent is not afraid to get graphic, I mean very graphic, with some action scenes and some other uncomfortable stuff towards the end that I am not going to say and ruin it, so if you have a weak stomach or don’t like that kind of thing, this series might not be for you. Personally, I just downloaded Rogue to my e-reader so I will be reading to see what Faythe is up to next :)
