Customer Reviews

Born To Be Wild (Others Novels)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book was okay but I didn't enjoy it as much as others in the series, all of which I've read. Josie is a vet in a shifter community but she doesn't treat shifters. Eli is the local sheriff and is a African Lion shifter. There was a bit right at the front where he tells her about waking up in odd places and that he once woke up in a kennel with a bunch of sled dogs. How did that happen? Did someone think that the african lion was a husky and he woke up human wondering where he was? I think maybe he must have been written as a wolf at first and this scene was missed in the edit. Speaking of editing I don't normally mention things like that and typos but this book was rife with them. I have seldom seen so many typos (wrong words the spellcheck missed) in a professionally edited and published work. I found at least 7 of them and I only started counting in the last half of the book.

I didn't really feel that there was much attraction between the hero and heroine. He had never noticed her in 3 years of being sheriff in a town that was described as small enough to walk end to end and they both frequented the only pastry shop daily yet they had never spoken before. Doesn't seem likely. Then when they do meet over a wounded shifter, he is basically immediately in love with her. There is very little discussion of her feelings for him but suddenly she is "in Love." I felt very little heat between the two much less any gentler feelings than pure physical.

The thing I found most disappointing about the novel though was that there was basically no reason for him to be a shifter. There is no discussion of shifter life style and pack dynamics. There are no actions that follow from a human falling in love with a shifter even if they are not a surprise to her.

Possible SPOILERS: He only changes to a lion twice and both times extremely briefly. He tracks using his senses while in human form. I know part of the plot dictated this but not until the end. Face it, one of the reasons we read shifter books is to see them shift and be the lion or whatever. He doesn't protect her in this form other than a brief fight and she doesn't pet him or admire him etc. All of these are things I like in shifter stories.

At the end there is a scene where she talks the shifter guys into going with them to catch the bad guys. Her reasoning was not sound and she shouldn't have been there so that sort of spoiled the end for me. Not to mention that the descriptions of the forest hideout of the bad guys dragged on and on and I skipped most of it. The end was a bit too facile and we never find out what happens to one of the major characters.

So if you're following the series go ahead and read it. It's not horrible but not near as entertaining as the earlier books in the series.

For the most part I enjoy the Others books, and this one was decent, although definitely not my favorite of the series. (Spoiler Check) While I liked the general idea of the plot, the bio-terrorism idea has these huge implications that are only skimmed over, and at the end, the drama just deflates. Oh, he's dead now, problem solved? No need to worry about the crazy virus he already infected people with? If these books revolved around the same main characters from book to book instead of shifting between couples, I might be inclined to think the problem would continue to be addressed in the next installment. As it is though, I doubt it. In all fairness though, these books are romance novels, not science fiction thrillers.

I must say though, as a frequent reader and someone who had 6 years of honors English classes, it's really hard to enjoy a professionally published book that is absolutely LITTERED with typos. There were more sentences throughout the book than I can count that made no sense unless you took out, added, or replaced a word that was in it. There were a few misspellings, but those are easier to ignore than a sentence that doesn't flow. I make no claims at being a perfect sentence-structurer (yes, I know that's not a word) or speller, but that's not my job. Whoever edited this book failed entirely. I feel like I purchased a draft copy instead of the final, ready-for-sale product.

I like Christine Warren, she's not in my top ten favorites but I will read her newest Other book. I could have passed on this one.

The plot description sounded intriguing but what flattened it for me was ***SPOILER ALERT*** the fact that none of the bad guys were introduced until the very end of the book. How much better would it have been to have had one of Josie's or Eli's friends or coworkers using the virus on his/her firends and neighbors?

I know this is mainly a paranormal romance but it could have used a little extra something cause the romance between Josie and Eli was, for me, tepid at best. We are asked to believe that in a very small town the sheriff and the vet have never met in three years, well maybe but it wasn't like that when I lived in a small town. Once they meet it is supposed to be instant True Love and Passion but instead felt tepid and forced like Warren only had so many pages to make this happen and so she used a hammer to force the romance into the plot.

Then there are parts of the plot that should be important enough to mention to each other that they just happen to forget.*** Possible Spoilers*** Josie forgets to tell Eli and the Alpha about the sick Lupine's elevated white cell count and Eli forgets to tell Josie he found an empty vial at the scene of an attack. C'mon, you have dead and dying Lupines and you can't remember the important details?

So they find the bad guys and a fight scene ensues and that's it. Huh? The end felt like Warren suddenly remembered she had something boiling over on the stove or had to go out of town and needed to finish the book immediately. So she did, no summation or accounting, just HEA over a dead body. Yeah, that works.

The typos and grammatical errors seem to be rife in books nowadays and it is both irritating and disruptive.

Would I buy another book by Warren? Yes, she has entertained me often enough and not every book can be a hit with every reader. If you are a fan of Warren's you will want this book but it probably won't be a favorite and if you are not a fan or are just starting to read her books bypass this one, she's written better.

I hate to say that when I know how hard authors work but that word sums it up. I follow this series and its been hit or miss with me from the beginning-some I like and some not so much but this one was the only one that I can say didnt have me eagerly flipping pages. Josie is the local vet in a small town and Eli is the local sheriff. Josie is human but she knows she lives in a town with a large population of shifters. She takes it all in stride. Eli is a lion shifter but you wouldnt know it since he only shifted twice in the story. The story had possibilities with a wounded wolf infected with a virus and Eli and Josie teeming up to see or figure out whats going on. Unfortunately the story falls flat between both of them withholding information from one another and missing obvious signs. I also didnt feel the romance or passion between the two, they just seemed to decide that they wanted to be together. I couldnt feel a connection which is unusual because even in the Warren books I thought were ok, I still felt the characters fall in love. At any rate just an ok read that can be missed if your tbr is already overflowing.

Like many other reviewers I am a fan of the series but was disappointed with this book. It lacked the appeal of the earlier books. I never really came to care about any of the characters and did not find the conflict very interesting. I also was amazed that the price for the Kindle was the same as full price for the paperback. I went out and bought a copy at a discount store. Someone needs to get more realistic in their pricing. I will not plunk down as much for the digital copy as for the paper - it doesn't make sense and I rarely pay full price for the paperbacks anyway.

I am a big fan of the "others" books..But this book lacked the fire and surprise that the rest of the series has had. It was as if this book was an after thought, just something to make a deadline. The main charactors lacked the spice of previous books. There was no "tension" between them, no fire. They fell in love just like that( snap your fingers). They solved the bad guy problem just like that (snap fingers again). I was just very disappointed. I didn't think that Ms. Warren would fall into the pit that other series I have read get into...The pit where they run out of good story lines or repeat them to death. Hopefully the next will be better.

I don't think that St Martin's employes an Editor other than a spell check program (several cases where the spell check substituted the wrong word and it wasn't caught). Lots of consistency errors. A couple non-sentences, and moose tracks as well as he/she mess ups. Factual errors as confusion as to which is flora and which is fauna. The only hunters that commonly use .50 cal are folks using 12ga shotguns with slugs. Yes there are .50 black powder rifles but the .50 sharps is relatively uncommon--most folks use .36 or .45. There are modern .50 rifles exemplified by the Barrett; but unless you are at least a 500 lb gorilla you don't fire one while standing. Also they are sniper weapons usually fired at ranges of 1 to 3 KM; they are totally useless in the woods. Also you can't tell reliably from a wound, particularly not from a graze, what caliber the weapon was. I was on a couple shootings with 12 gauge slugs And the entry wound in both cases was about the size of a dime. I was on an accidental shooting with a .50 sharps that grazed a shoulder and it left a smaller wound than a graze from a .22LR.

The search did not have a warrant and would render any evidence inadmissible and any participants subject to arrest. Very poor procedure and in this day and age, and this country totally unrealistic.

The two protagonists Josie the vet and Eli the sheriff (a lion) are a little rough but not badly done. The rest of the characters are spear carriers again not badly done. The plot is pretty good but the villain is pretty weak (just another nut). I would like to give a better rating but while the peril is fairly original and starts off well the ending is hurried and incomplete to the point of disconcerting. The brief erotic scenes are not bad but not up to snuff. Certainly not up to Jaid Black or Angela Knight (or even Loria Leigh).

Overall a bit better than average and not a bad read. (I reserve 3 stars for notably better than average for the genre, and this isn't it sadly.)

I usually love her books, but this book was missing her magic. It was an okay read for me. I could not get into their romance. I usually can't put her book down, but I could not get engrossed into this one.

4 out of 5 stars! Considering I hadn't previously read any other books from this series, I really got drawn into this novel. Especially since I really like shifter novels, plus this one was different in that the rest of the "human" population were aware of shifters, and that is one of the main reasons that the wolf was having a problem (people who didn't like any shifters were out to get them). Then to top off the mystery part of the book, the romance between Josie and Eli was HOT and just a great read to find out what would happen between them.

Review By: From Me to You ... Book Review
(read more of this review and a teaser on my blog)

Stone Creek, Oregon is your typical small town, with one exception, it's about 70% others the majority of whom are wolves. Jose is your typical small town vet, grew up in the Stone Creek and has always known about the others. Eli is the hunky police cheif, an other himself, he is a lion. Jose's peaceful existence is shattered one night when Eli bursts into her clinic carrying a very injured lupine. Jose and Eli soon discover that something is causing the lupines of Stone Creek to go feral and must work together to get to the bottom of the problem, along the way they must deal with the sparks that ignite between them each time they are in each other's company.

Written in the typical Christine Warren style of strong alpha males, fiesty females and snappy dialogue, this is a good read. If you've read anything else by Ms. Warren, you know what to expect and she delivers as usual. There is good action and suspence as Jose, Eli and company try to figure out what is going on. The romance is hot and steamy and not to explicit. The secondary characters are fun and I hope we might see them in future books

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good romp with lions and tigers and bears, oh my.