Hot and Badgered

Laurenston is one of my favorite authors. Whenever I am in need of a book that is guaranteed to slap a smile on my face I usually grab something written by her. Is this book a literary masterpiece? No, but it's damn funny, full of interesting characters, and there is just enough paranormal to keep me interested.

This is a spin-off to the author's Pride series. If you haven't read those, please start there.

Where Laurenston shines is how she writes her characters. They are ALL flawed. They have panic disorders, mommy/daddy issues, crazy families, etc., and they all are shifters. There animal side is very much a part of who they are. These aren't characters that can turn into animals. If they are a bear shifter, they are also bearlike in human form: curious, love honey, don't play well with other breeds. The honey badgers are scrappy, tend to want to take things that aren't theirs, and they also love honey. The focus couple in this are a grizzly bear shifter and a honey badger/wolf hybrid. They are good together. The bear is very patient and is exactly what the hybrid needs considering her crazy family. Her two sisters are a big part of this book because her whole life has been focused on keeping them safe, mostly from their asshat of a father.

A lot of this story is set up for future stories. Normally have a hard time getting through a book like this, but not this one. Laurenston's characters are so cool I enjoyed being introduced to each one of them, and there are quite a few.

While led this is a romance book, there wasn't a lot of focus on the couple. I was okay with that, but I do feel like I would have liked to see them interact more. More times where he was a hero for her, he did, but I wanted more of him crushing bad guys with his bear strength.

Really recommend this book, actually all books written by this author.

Digital ARC provided by Netgalley. Publication date: March 27, 2018

Five stars for what it is - a very funny, action packed, violence packed romantic fantasy about weres. This is a story of three bad-ass half sisters with a no-good honeybadger daddy, and each their own mom. The eldest, Charlie, has a wolf mom, who ends up being mom for everyone, as first the middle-sister's (Max) honeybadger mom leaves her daughter to be watched after while she was busy doing a heist, and then the little sister's (Stevie) tiger mom did the same. And then when their dad gets the wolf mom killed, the girls wander to live with her dad's pack. It was so funny, I laughed out loud a lot, and read a lot of passages to my husband. :-D Not that much hot sex, but some. I love it how Shelly makes the shapeshifters behave like the animals they are supposed to be, even when they are in their human form. I love these people, most of them. The villains are adequately evil and scary, the dad is an a-hole, and I love the violent fighting scenes. Charlie is my hero! :-DNow, this is the first in the Honey Badger Chronicles, but it helps, if you start with [b:Pack Challenge 112539 Pack Challenge (Magnus Pack, #1) Shelly Laurenston https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388246223l/112539.SY75.jpg 108358], the first book in the “Smith's Shifter World Series”. There were quite a lot of people I didn't have the slightest idea of who they were or what they were, and that made it a bit hard to understand.

This book is a spin-off of the Pride series. Now, I didn't realize this before I read it and I was wondering who all these other characters were and if I was supposed to know them somehow. So, it would be best to read Pride first, but you totally don't have to. In fact, out off all the books set in this world, this is probably my favorite books.

We've got some awesome characters, the romance is... pretty darn good, I feel like they did get to know each other, and I enjoyed the action scenes. My only problem is the amount of characters thrown out in book 1 of a series. I am sooooo looking forward to the second book.