Reviewer: Jen Hot and Badgered (Honey Badger Chronicles, #1) by Shelly Laurenston
Series: Honey Badger Chronicles, #1
Also in this series: Hot and Badgered (Honey Badgers Chronicles #1), In a Badger Way
Publisher: Kensington
Publication Date: March 27, 2018
Format: eARC
Point-of-View: Third Person
Genres: Paranormal Romance
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
It’s not every day that a beautiful naked woman falls out of the sky and lands face-first on grizzly shifter Berg Dunn’s hotel balcony. Definitely they don’t usually hop up and demand his best gun. Berg gives the lady a grizzly-sized t-shirt and his cell phone, too, just on style points. And then she’s gone, taking his XXXL heart with her. By the time he figures out she’s a honey badger shifter, it’s too late. Honey badgers are survivors. Brutal, vicious, ill-tempered survivors. Or maybe Charlie Taylor-MacKilligan is just pissed that her useless father is trying to get them all killed again, and won’t even tell her how. Protecting her little sisters has always been her job, and she’s not about to let some pesky giant grizzly protection specialist with a network of every shifter in Manhattan get in her way. Wait. He’s trying to help? Why would he want to do that? He’s cute enough that she just might let him tag along—that is, if he can keep up . . .
A series featuring honey badger shifter sisters? YES PLEASE!
This is yet another spin-off from Laurenston’s eternally growing shifter books, and it is a great addition to the world. The series centers on the three MacKilligan half sisters: Max, Stevie, and Charlie, the heroine of this first book. The women have a crappy father who takes “deadbeat” to a whole new level. They’ve basically spent their entire lives trying to extricate themselves from their dad’s schemes and the incredible danger he constantly puts them in. (And let’s face it, they are constantly making their own enemies too!) In this book, their lives are once again in danger thanks to their dad, and they come to the attention of the secret shifter organization we’ve see in the other books, called The Group. Charlie also meets Berg, a large and sweet bear shifter. When Berg takes a liking to Charlie, he starts to help them and quickly gets himself and his two siblings sucked into the MacKilligan’s bananas world.
I love these sisters! Charlie, Max, and Stevie are all messed up in their own ways, but they never fail to support each other. They argue and give each other a hard time, but they always have each other’s back. This is some fierce female love right here. (Figurative and literally fierce–these ladies are violent and aggressive, as you would expect from honey badgers!) I also love Berg and his siblings. They are triplets, and while they are infinitely more well-adjusted than the MacKilligan sisters, they are just as devoted to each other. I know it’s rare in real life to have sibling relationships like these, but I love the fantasy in my books.
Charlie is an excellent character, too. She is an organizer, a manager, and a people handler. She’s the one who often talks them out of the messes her sisters and her dad get them into. Her talents aren’t as flashy, or scary, as her sisters’, but she’s really the glue that keeps them all together and functioning. In a way she reminded me of Toni Jean-Louis Parker from Laurenston’s Wolf with Benefits (and we see a bit of Toni in this book too), but without so much of the type-A arrogance that makes Toni a bit off-putting at times. Berg is a great match for Charlie as well. He’s a quiet, strong support for her and does so without dampening her strengths or trying to get between her and her sisters. You can tell Berg is the first person who’s simply supported Charlie without any expectation of something in return, and it takes Charlie a while to figure out what to do with that kind of love. Once she does, though, it’s adorable.
This book is very much in the vein of Laurenston’s other shifter books, but I do think the MacKilligan sisters are some of her most interesting and fun characters so far. I loved this book and can’t wait to read more.
Grade: 4.5 out of 5
Leave a Reply