Guest Review: Falke’s Renegade by Anna Leigh Keaton & Madison Layle

What must it be like to be the only female born into a family of puma-shifters in the last 150 years?  It is the plight of Heidi Falke and has put her life into a mold that is uncomfortable and one that holds limited prospects for the future.  She is greatly loved and deeply respected for her brain and her achievements as the community veterinarian.  But she has two fathers who are focused on her well-being and with whom she resides, and older brothers, one of whom is her alpha, who growl and spit every time she goes anywhere near a male they don’t approve of, especially another shifter.

Now she is responsible for caring for a shifter–a jaguar who has been shot and seriously wounded, a man who has lost his mate, his unborn son, and his twin at the hands of an assassin bent on destroying all shifters.  He is a very honorable man and one who recognizes the attraction between him and Heidi but who is determined to be true to the memory of his “one,” his mate.  Yet Heidi knows that finding a mate for her will be next to impossible and she is going to make some memories while she has the chance.

This is the third in a series of novellas about a shifter family in the American Northwest who are treasured by their community, who have come to be respected and the part of the lives of humans who live shoulder to shoulder to the Falke family.  Heidi’s brothers live in committed polyamourous relationships and they have borne children that are the loves of Heidi’s life.  Yet unless she meets a shifter mate she knows that she will never have children of her own.  It is a layer of sorrow that pervades her life, a sense of loss that is always there.  Javier brings some loving, some joy, a deep sense of appreciation for who Heidi is, but his determination to remain true to his wife’s memory keeps that sadness in Heidi very much alive.

I have liked all these novellas and have found them interesting as the authors have developed a community that lives with pumas yet has so little awareness of the true dimensions of the family.  Now they are bringing in another kind of story into the mix, a female shifter who cannot shift herself and who will remain barren all her life unless she mates with another shifter.  It’s a different twist on the paranormal/shifter story and testifies to the creativity of the writers as well as their ability to keep the tensions, the consistency in story telling quality alive after telling two other tales in the series.  There are always common denominators in shifter romance fiction, but from time to time there are authors who give us another twist, another zigzag in the legends and the telling thereof.  So it is with this short novel.  It’s fun reading, not taking up too much time but yet sufficiently long to develop the characters and the scenarios in which their story unfolds.  I know I was delighted when this latest addition to the series appeared and those who like the writing of this team will be equally pleased.

The Series: