Title: Wild Fire
Author: Christine Feehan
Series: The Leopard People #4
Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect)
My Bookshelves: Animagus, Paranormal romance, Shapeshifters
Dates read: 19th December 2018 – 6th January 2019
Pace: Medium
Format: Novel
Publisher: Jove Books
Year: 2010
5th sentence, 74th page: His gaze was too focused, too absolute, making her feel as if she were the only woman in his world.

Called on a dangerous assignment, leopard shifter Conner Vega returns to the Panama rain forest of his homeland, looking every bit the civilized male. But as a member of the most lethal of the shifter tribes, he doesn’t have a civilized bone in his body. He carries the scent of a wild animal in its prime, he bears the soul-crushing sins of past kills and he’s branded with the scars of shame inflicted by the woman he betrayed.

Isabeau Chandler is a Borneo shifter who’s never forgiven Conner – or forgotten him. The mating urge is still with her, and when she crosses Conner’s path, passions burn like wild-fire. But as Conner’s mission draws Isabeau closer, another betrayal lies waiting in the shadows – and it’s the most perilous and intimate one of all.

It took me a very long time to get into this novel. I did start reading this last year, about six months ago, but it just wasn’t what I was completely in the mood for. But, this time, it was something that certainly tickled me fancy a little more. Even though it still took me a while to get into the first 200 pages. The last 200 I read in a matter of days, it’s just the pace of the book and the mood I’m in I suppose.

Conner and Isabeau start off this story with a past relationship, so rather than being a story about first love, it’s one about gaining trust. Although I do enjoy the stories about first passions, love at first sight, and the idea of that very first courtship, sometimes it’s a nice change of pace to read about another stage in the relationship. Especially when it is a somewhat fragmented one. Somehow, the idea of betrayal and regaining trust, finding out more about someone after that initial “honeymoon period” is more engaging. It’s more real. More intense and able to draw me in. Probably because I’m in a long-term relationship, so the issues I’m facing are very different to those of first love.

Although I enjoyed Burning Wild, I absolutely adored the setting in Wild Fire. After all, it’s set in some incredibly attractive lands of the rainforest. In Panama, a place I’ve never visited, but one my friend has assured me is absolutely stunning. The mystery of the land and the intensity of the wilderness add to the fast paced storyline as Conner and Isabeau not only fight to return to one another, but also take down a drug cartel and rescue innocent children. It’s certainly a dreamy and intense world in which Feehan transports you to.

Image source: Christine Feehan

Title: Burning Wild
Author: Christine Feehan
Series: The Leopard People #3
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Animagus, Paranormal romance, Shapeshifters
Pace: Fast
Format: Novel
Publisher: Jove
Year: 2009
5th sentence, 74th page: Candles.

Bred by capricious parents for his innate leopard-shifitng abilities, billionaire Jack Bannaconni has spent his life in an emotional vacuum – especially after a tragic twist of fate left him to raise his infant son alone. But when his path crosses that of an enigmatic young woman, Jake’s life takes a detour he never fathomed.

There is something irresistible about Emma Reynolds – something Jake can’t live without. Hiring her as his son’s nanny will keep her close. And warm. And under watch. She’s the first human to stir something in Jake, something he’s never felt before. But Emma may not be at all what she seems. And what’s raging between them is pure animal instinct – out of control, burning wild and as hot as the lick of a flame.

Jake is kind of an idiot. And an ass. And it took me longer to read this novel than any of the other Feehan stories so far because he was kind of painful. But I absolutely adored and loved Emma. She was sweet and caring. Soft and nurturing. Yet she didn’t let Jake push her around and found her own ways to work with his little peeves.

I enjoy the paranormal romance genre, although sometimes it does hit my feminist bone. And this one certainly set it off. Which probably has a lot to do with the fact that Jake was a possessive, obsessive douche. At the end of the story, I certainly softened to him. And at the beginning I felt sorry for him. But during the middle? It was hard to like him. It felt a little too overbearing, and I know that if I was placed in a position with such a man, I wouldn’t be okay with it. But, as always, Feehan was able to write in such a way that I became engaged in and enthralled with the relationship anyway.

This is the first of all the stories that incorporates motherhood and children into the tale. And it made a much softer counterpoint to Jake’s tale and childhood. The two children and Emma are so incredibly beautiful. And reading about their lives together and the joys of day to day living is just… nice. It makes all the darkness that this story carries somehow less. And in doing so, let me completely sink into the storyline and be swept away by the passion and love that drives the tale.

Image source: Christine Feehan

Title: Wild Rain
Author: Christine Feehan
Series: The Leopard People #2
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Animagus, Paranormal romance, Shapeshifters
Pace: Fast
Format: Novel
Publisher: Jove
Year: 2004
5th sentence, 74th page: Why would someone be so intent on killing you?

What has she done? With a new identity, a staged death, and a chance to flee the treachery that stalks her, Rachael has escaped from a faceless assassin. Now, thousands of miles from home, under the lush canopy of the rain forest, she’s found sanctuary.

Where can she hide? In this world teeming with unusual creatures walks the most exotic of them all. His name is Rio. A native of the forest imbued with a fierce prowess, he is something to be desired. Possessed of secrets of his own, he is something to be feared.

Whom can she trust? But as Rachael’s past looms as oppressively as the heat of the forest, and as Rio unleashes the secret animal instincts that course through his blood, Rachael fears that her isolated haven has become an inescapable hell…

I guessed that Rachael was somehow involved in gangs or something illegal through her family from the very first chapter. But that didn’t take away from the fact that her fleeing for her life was incredibly intense and even a little scary. I was even completely drawn in, wondering how badly her enemies wanted her. There were moments that I wondered if it was all in her head, and others where I was a little convinced that the assassins would win. So I loved this extra stakes that Rachael’s storyline added to Wild Rain.

I read Christine Feehan for a bit of a romance / a lot of a lust kick. The addition of the paranormal aspects and her amazing talent just help to make these stories impossible to put down. And I honestly found it a little more difficult to get into The Awakening, even though I liked the general premise of the storyline. So I was really hoping that the relationship in this one would be a little more two-sided, both characters would have a little more give and take than Maggie and Brandt. And it provided!

Rio is an incredibly masculine character – but I like how gentle he is with Rachael and the love that shines through their actions. I also love the fact that she is able to stand up to him and throw him off balance. It was this dynamic of constantly making each other a little ill at ease that really made me fall in love with this story. The idea of everything taking place in a rainforest and with leopard shapeshifters just made everything all the more engaging and interesting.

Image source: Kobo