Hot and Badgered by Shelly LaurenstonMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Can we talk about how much I love Shelly Laurenston's characters? I love them. I love the way she writes them. I love the snark and the sass and the don't-give-a-shit attitudes and the love (sometimes grudging) and the way these shifter relationships just make sense. And I say this as someone who isn't the biggest fan of shifter novels.
Smart Bitches, Trashy Books said it best in a review from 2016: "Among my favorite things about Laurenston’s writing is how very affirming and inspiring and a whole lot of fun it is, because angry, fearless women make room for themselves, they get shit done, and they’re the heroines. More honey badgers, please."
Again, I'm not a fan of most shifter stories. Werewolf romances leave me cold, for the most part (werewolf movies, eh). These worlds that Laurenston's built, though ... the fact that there aren't just wolves, that life isn't just about turning into a werewolf or hunting vampires and zombies, but about the lives those characters inhabit, well, that's my jam. Add a huge dose of snark and buttloads of action (fairly gory action, I might add), and I'm hooked. I hope I'm like Charlie in one of the other dimensions where another me is living. Possibly with Max's knife skills and lack of morals.
As for Stevie's mental issues, I adored the way they were handled. They just ... were. And yes, they needed to be handled and she needed to be on her meds and she freaks out A LOT but it's SO REAL and I know there are people who act that way and it doesn't make them crazy, just different. These characters act the way I imagine shifters really WOULD be acting in real life - not just Creature Of The Week.
And then there are the Dunn triplets ... I kept going back to reread their interactions because sibling squabbling has me laughing out loud and these - and the MacKilligan sisters - definitely caused more than one gleeful snort and a quick drag of the highlight key.
As for the deadbeat (a tame word in this case) dad, and the extended family - which doesn't consider the MacKilligan sisters to be family because they're hybrid, aka mixed breed ... seeing so many of them put in their place caused so much schadenfreude it's a little embarrassing. Still, I can tell there's a buttload more trouble on the way, and I am HERE FOR IT.
I really liked that the romance was a slow burn and so this read more like an action novel than anything else (so don't get it if you think this is more like normal shifter romances, I guarantee you it's not).
Plus, the dog, and his insolence, and basically cock-blocking the romance, what a little (giant) sod. Laurenston and her dogs.
This book made me SO HAPPY. And that's really what I want in what feels like the end times.
Aside from The Call of Crows series and the Dragon Kin (written as G.A. Aiken), the Honey Badger series looks set to shoot to the top of my favourites, the books I need to read when the world around me is sucktastic as hell. I'd say we need a TV series so I can enjoy that while rereading for the umpteenth time.
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