Ame’s review of The Tiger’s Tale by Nara Malone.
Never quite fitting in, Marie has always struggled with her identity. Adam has shown her just how sensual she can be, but despite this awakening she still doesn’t feel complete. That’s because she’s not. Orphaned at birth and raised by humans, practical Marie has no idea of her dual heritage as tiger and woman, or the role she must play to save her species.
When Adam discovers that his alluring girlfriend is not only a Pantherian tiger but carries unique genetic traits that could save their species, he asks Ean to join them as the third partner in the traditional Pantherian mating triad. With the future of the species at stake, the sexy shifters have only one week to convince her that not only is she a tiger, but she must mate with both men to save the Pantherians from extinction.
This book, based on the blurb, had so much potential. Unfortunately, it did not live up to that potential.
The Tiger’s Tale opens up with Marie’s boyfriend, Adam, and another man, Ean, discussing some lab results. Apparently, Marie has Pantherian DNA – meaning she can shift into a tiger. But Marie was raised by humans and is not aware of her heritage. She also doesn’t realize that she hasn’t been able to conceive because she needs the sperm of two male Pantherians to get pregnant. Adam tries to introduce into his and Marie’s bed without telling her, but Marie needs to be told the truth. But Adam only tells her part of the truth (a big no-no for this reader). So Marie sleeps with both men and a few days later wakes up…thinking its just the next morning. She freaks out (how did she lose FOUR days?) and goes into hiding. Not realizing she’s pregnant. She also has these odd dreams about tigers…
Adam and Ean are desperate to find Marie. She’s going to shift soon to handle the accelerated rate of pregnancy – only Marie doesn’t know this. Also, she needs to shift right before birth so she doesn’t give birth to kittens. Her babies need to born human in order for proper brain development to occur. If she has kittens, the formative years will have been missed and they’ll basically have wild children that don’t know how to talk, etc.
Ok, this book had quite a few problems. First of all Adam not telling Marie the full truth. He shouldn’t have tricked into having a threesome with Ean without revealing everything to her. Yeah fertility cycles happen every 7 years for a Pantherian female, but still, he should have told her the full truth.
Second – Marie is in tiger form for a big chunk of the book. She shifts into a tiger without a word of warning from Ean or Adam. And there’s no real resolution between Adam and Marie because while Marie is giving birth – Adam is wounded by some human hunters (he’s in tiger form) and somehow his spirit gets stuck in Marie’s body. So after Marie has her six human babies, she starts seizing and having fits and no one can explain why. It’s discovered with some magical help that Adam is in Marie.
Even when Adam returns to his own form, things are not really resolved between this two. Throw in Ean leaving their triad because he feels like he’s not loved (how could he know? Marie wasn’t exactly able to tell him she fell for him while pregnant with his babies as a tiger) and this book was just too disjointed to truly enjoy. There was definitely too much going on and not enough emotional development between all three characters.
I’m giving The Tiger’s Tale 2.75 out of 5.
This book is available from Ellora’s Cave.
Uh, oh God. The six babies alone make this a zero star book for me!!