Customer Reviews

Stray (Shifters, Book 1)

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(40)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

This novel definitely has promise. Granted, the one of the few females in the pack/pride has already been done (and better) by Kelley Armstrong, but Vincent's Stray does manage to produce a book with a lot of action and an interesting plot line. The interaction between Faythe and her brothers is fun. The extra men in her life are sexy. (Makes you wonder what's with the were-cat gene to make all the men beautiful?)

I do have a few complaints about the novel. Granted, I don't find them so unbearable that I didn't enjoy reading the book. First, Faythe is a ginormous B****. She is so stuck up on herself that she puts herself before her family, her friends, and even the people who believe they love her. She realizes in the story what she is doing and has no remorse whatsoever. Yet, later she takes the place of her cousin to prevent her from getting hurt. HUGE contradiction in character. I let it go and hope that the author does this on purpose to show growth of character. Second, is the fact that the were-cats act more like wolves than they do an actual pride of large cats. I don't remember reading or watching any specials were large cats are monogamous. Nor any reasons why there would be so few females (5-1). Also, it's the female cat that does the hunting. Vincent has them at home protected and guarded to the extreme. Why don't more men fight over the women if there were so few? Lastly, what do the other men do for pleasure? For families? Can they have children outside of the pride? For such a long book, she answered few of the questions that I consider important in establishing a new world.

I'll still read the next. I think this book has great potential and I hope to see a marked improvement in the next.

Faythe Sanders is a were kitty with a problem. She is one of the few females of her species (ala Elena), and her father sends her ex-boyfriend Clay... Oops... Marc to escort her home. What nefarious reason does Daddy have to do this? He wants to protect her and keep her safe? What an awful guy! The problem is Faythe broke up with Marc and broke his heart and would rather stay at school and be yet another over-educated nitwit than return home and help her people. When Faythe does get back to the ranch, she finds herself the center of a love triangle between Marc and Jace two of daddy's hot bodyguards. Is Faythe happy with the situation? No! She must make everyone miserable, including her father, her brothers, and her mother. Is she satisfied then? No! She must assert her independence AT ALL costs, even if it means risking her life and everyone else's' in the process.

Seriously what the heck? I thought characters like Faythe belonged in 1970's harlequin novels. She never gets off the Self Pity train and her bellyaching about her independence constantly (while consequently relying on her parents to pay for her college education and future grad school) left me cold. Seriously this girl never works a day in her life...She is a total spoiled brat... This would be somewhat more palatable if she changes in the story... But it doesn't happen. Not only is she spoiled but she is TSTL at times. Yikes!

Ironically, I LIKED the male characters. But even they came off as TSTL for their utter love of Faythe which seemed undeserved and frankly a little hard to believe. Considering how she jerks them around.

Many plot elements reminded me of Armstrong's work, down to the Kitties not wanting their blood tested because it was `different' to the alpha cat having a cage in his basement. I agree with the other reviewer who said the ecology of the were animals in the story remind me more of wolves than large cats. Frankly I am surprised so many males would be content with a monogamous arrangement of their only females when there are so many young healthy men running around single.

Overall this novel which started off promising ended up being a disappointment. Faythe was annoying as a heroine could be and the similarities to Armstrong's work were difficult for this reader to choke down.

Faythe is not just your average MA student at the University of North Texas. She's a werecat--and one of only eight females in the US of breeding age. It seems, girl-children (aka 'tabbies' in Vincent's parlance) among this species are extremely rare. There are only a few females and daughters are limited to only one girl per alpha were-couple. Faythe's furious when she's attacked by a `stray' werecat and Daddy calls her home to the ranch instead of being allowed to finish out the summer semester.

What Faythe doesn't realize til she gets home is that Sara, one of the other 7 female werecats, has been kidnapped, plus several normal human girls have been mauled and murdered with werecat evidence on them. The family is concerned that Faythe's next and her over-protective father will literally put her in a cage before he will allow her to be at risk.

Faythe's scared, too--not just of the abduction of werecat tabbies, but every woman's primeval fear. She's scared of becoming her mother, as she describes her, `the June Cleaver of werecats.' Her relationship with the Pride's chosen mate for her, Marc, is out of control. That and drunken grief over Sara's death propels her to make mistakes that put her in jeopardy.

At 600 plus pages and approximately 120,000 words, "Stray" is surprisingly long for a new author investment. That number of pages was too long for the plotline. Vincent needs to learn to evaluate her novels more closely to see what is essential and what material could be shortened or cut altogether without any serious loss to the novel.

While the book comes highly recommended, "Stray" does suffer from some debut novel flaws.

One of the most serious of those flaws is originality. Kelley Armstrong, one of the blurb circle for this book, wrote a very similar plotline for her "Women of the Otherworld," series. Writers really need to think of a more scientifically plausible explanation for few females in a race if they are going to use it as a literary device.

Additionally, while the immediate bad guys are caught, we don't precisely have closure as to why the women were stolen. In 600 pages, it seems like we should have had some resolution to the main storyline and move on to something else for the next book.

Vincent could do a little more research into big cats before her next venture into this world. Her "Pride" structure works more for a wolf pack than felines. My chief complaint here is that cats in Prides are monogamous pairs. Lifetime bonding is a wolf trait. Also, considering the well-known fact that the male of the pair determines the sex of the children, it's a sound idea for the 'tabbies' to mate outside the Alpha-pairing not just for the possibility of having better odds at female children, but also to provide a more diverse gene pool.

There's a fine line authors walk between creating a [...]heroine and a bully with a Jane Wayne complex. Vincent crossed that line with a heavy-handed hunting scene where Faythe knowingly killed "Bambi's mother". Faythe managed to redeem herself somewhat when she offered herself up to her kidnapper instead of a younger cousin. Faythe still has maturing to do before she's much more than primarily self-involved, but I don't doubt there will be more novels in the "Stray" universe to come. I think near the end, she discovered a passion and purpose in defending those who cannot defend themselves. I really hope that Ms. Vincent continues writing with that vein in mind.

Okay, firstly let me explain myself for the header. I am a HUGE lover of the supernatural urban romance horror noir genre. I love that there is a niche for readers who love monsters, romance, killing, mystery, and comedy all packed together into an imaginative world of the authors creation. But more and more I keep picking up these new authors and new potential series and....they aren't good.

The thing that put the Nancy A Collins and the Tanya Huffs and the early LKH was the fact that it was new. Their worlds were very much their creations (as much as anything creative can be) The female protaganists where strong, deeply flawed, and complex. The male leads shared a lot of those qualities as well and the supernatural element colors their worlds and fills in the gaps. This new crop though....they don't get it. I will state my case briefly and be off:

1. The were cats and their animal identity was murky at best. Did I believe these characters were dual natured? Did I believe these characters were real at all? No, they were vague shadows, the pack leader a generic Jeremy Danvers knock off. The mom was a combination of every homemaker/society wife ever and the male characters were hunky, generic, and interchangeable.

2. The main character! Her flaw is that she is so thoughtless, so self involved, and so childish that she endangers herself. She should be kept at home is there is so much danger around. Her cousin was raped...and she was totally unsupportive. And all the while she is leading on another member of her pack knowing full well what will happen to him if spurned ex lover catches on. She completely blows off human boyfriend (just like in Bitten) But all that would be fine if that was what the author intended, if that was the kind of character that she was ...But she wasn't she was supposed to be, described herself as being, and is spoken to like she is an entirely different character. The new crop of novels just 'tells ' me that they are tough, 'tells' me they are smart and 'tells' me that they aren't in love with the perfectly hunky male lead....

3. The potential.
Were Cats in the Desert: no one had featured them exclusively, outside of Cat People. Sigh.

See this book had potential, and i read it all the way thru all though it was difficult (long layovers will help with that) The book was too long, the plot too thin, the main character too callous...

and she wasn't tough, or sassy, or intelligent.
but she told us she was.

Rachel Vincent's book about a group of werecats was based on an interesting concept. The main plot was well-conceived, and some parts of the novel were very suspenseful. I enjoyed the author's descriptions of the change a human must undergo to take her werecat shape, or vice versa.

Unfortunately, there were several problems with the book that took away from the main plot. First, the main character Faythe was not very likeable, and I never fully understood the reasoning behind some of her actions. Her romances with several male characters seemed dull and unbelievable. Second, there were too many supporting characters and subplots; it was almost impossible to keep everything straight. This book reads like a rough draft of what could be a very good book but that was not cut down to size. The numerous asides to explain the backstories of virtually every minor character seriously decrease the overall quality of the book.

A warning: Stray contains somewhat detailed descriptions of severe physical and sexual violence towards women. Most of it is second-hand accounts, but I found it rather hard to read all the same. I don't think I would have bought the book if I knew that would be so central to the plot. If you are squeamish of such things, don't read this book. If you can handle it, you might want to give it a try.

Faythe Sanders is a female werecat (tabby) who craves a normal life. Unfortunately 'tabbies' are much rarer than 'toms' and because of this are protected. When other tabbies start disappearing Faythe is called home from University. She is determined this will only be a temporary setback for her independence, but the choice might not be hers to make.

First off the good stuff. This is a well-written debut to a new urban fantasy series. At 616 pages it's a little long (some of this length is due to page formatting I think - text columns are quite narrow) but the author manages to keep up the pace of the story. The world and family relationships are believable and not all the mysteries are given away - so at the end we're left wanting more. The characters with one important exception (see below) are interesting individuals I want to know more about.

The similarities between this book and Kelley Armstrong's Bitten don't do Stray any favours. As in my opinion The Otherworld series by KA is much more strongly told.

However my main problem with the book is the protagonist. Faythe is an incredibly selfish and immature heroine. She also make stupid mistakes because of her own arrogant behaviour. During the first three hundred and forty pages every single time I thought she was improving she'd do something to reinforce my negative opinion. She keeps going on and on about how she wants to be treated like an adult but insists on behaving like a twelve year old. She seems unable to grasp the concept that if she behaved in an adult manner her family would be more likely to respond positively. This is very wearing to read about and also makes it difficult to understand why (seemingly) every adult male not related to her wants to be her boyfriend.

Halfway through she has an extra large dose of reality and her behaviour improves. I found the second half of the story a much easier read because she was dealing with her problems rather than just complaining about how hard her life is - maybe because by that point no one cares. She's still overly arrogant and cocky but it's easier to experience because she's not being such a brat.

I'm cautiously looking forward to the next book - Rogue. And I hope at some point in the future Rachel Vincent will write a story about the werecats that isn't told from Faythe's perspective.

I really thought this book looked like it could be good. I usually prefer to wait and read a review or two, but I pre-ordered it. I wanted to like it, it had sounded just so interesting to me.

But the fact is, I didn't enjoy it. The main character has got to be one of my least favorite main characters to read. She's stubborn, immature, and I was constantly getting this annoyed feeling when she was talking about herself and her problems. When she talked about the backstory, and how these werecats came to be it was interesting to read. She was unfortunately not such a fun character to read. She made me want to grind my teeth.

The other characters in all this weren't that much better either. There were quite easy to confuse with one another. The only thing keeping them straight was a reminder of their one characteristic (ex: one of them was like a modern day cowboy, though I can't remember his name)

The reason all the tabbies were going missing was pretty good, and it could have been done much better (with a better main character, and better storytelling). If there were going to be a sequel I would certainly not read it.

Faythe is a werecat trying to live independently at a college campus. Her Alpha father lets her "spread" her wings so to speak, but still sends spies to watch over her everyday. She is one of eight females who can breed. She is a rarity and therefore very valuable.
Females start missing and her family literally kidnaps her and brings her back home. They want to keep her safe from whoever is kidnapping the females. The mystery of this whole story basically is who is kidnapping these young women and why.
My opinion: Faythe is a spoiled, uncaring, defiant girl who thinks only of herself and really not a whole lot of others. I really didn't care for the character much myself, For example, all you read throughout the book is how she wants to be independent and how she is an adult and how she wants to be treated as such. VERY tiring. I kept wanting to yell and say ACT like an adult and not a spoiled brat and maybe you would get respect. I didn't care for Marc the guy who feels he is her mate but I did feel awful sorry for the poor werecat Jace. He seems to take the brunt of a lot of stuff. I would love to see a story based on Jace - he seemed to be the most interesting character in the book.
I was excited when I got this book, but quickly became disappointed about 1/4 of the way through. It could have been better and should have been better. The storyline was a good one. It just fell flat. Character building is important and that wasn't present in this book. I was looking forward to the next in this series but think I will skip it.

Faythe Sanders is an independent, headstrong graduate student who has left the stability of her family's home to pursue her education. Faythe is also a werecat, and one of the few females. When a stray, a werecat without any familial associations, comes to Faythe's campus to try to kidnap her, Faythe's father, the Alpha of her Pride, decides she needs to come back home for awhile. The female cats are being kidnapped and he has no desire for his daughter to meet the same fate. Against her will, Faythe returns home to the Pride she abandoned, the man whose heart she broke, and the future she swore she'd never succumb to. Will she be able to take control of her life and resist following her father's orders, or will the Pride cat within her come to the surface and make her forgo the life she thought she wanted?

Rachel Vincent's Stray isn't bad, but it isn't great. In fact, if it were about half as long I might actually be writing a glowing review right now. But I really don't have time for fluff and 617 pages for a paranormal romance is a bit much for a first novel. Or maybe, that's just what I thought. The characters were well drawn. I love the hero and will probably read the next book just to hear more about him, if it's a continuation of this story. And the plot was interesting. True, I found the heroine annoying, but I feel that way about most of them these days. All talk and no action, or running headfirst into danger when it's clear to any kindergartner that they're about to get themselves in trouble. Le sigh. I'm mad that it took me so long to finish this book, and that the good parts were obscured by the needless commentary, but like I said, I'll give the series another chance. This book wasn't great by any means, but it's not bad overall.

SPOILERS- Not major ones, but a few minor ones. This was an incredibly frustrating book. I wanted to like it. I ALMOST did, but in the end, I was more annoyed with the main character than is reasonable. I will include a few examples (hence the spoilers) to try to explain.

HIGH LEVEL: Book 1 in a pretty standard werewolf urban fantasy, but with werecats... Who don't behave like cats at all, but wolves. Strong female lead character struggling for independence and respect in a Pack system that both cherishes and oppresses the more rare females. The writing is clear, descriptive and accessible. The characters are likeable- even adorable at times...

EXCEPT FOR THE HEROINE. She was ALMOST a solid archetypal female lead. Unfortunately, she was too inconsistent, short sighted and had the impulse control of a 16 year old- which, as you can imagine, doesn't read well when a MAIN THEME is her struggle for respect as an intelligent, independent adult. She continuously demonstrated incredibly poor judgment and a complete disregard for consequences. Look- I'm all for breaking away from the pack story lines, but you have to make me LIKE the girl who is trying to do it.

It was hard to take her seriously as an adult - for instance, despite all the evidence, including something as obvious as INCLUDING HER IN COUNCIL MEETINGS, it never occurred to her that her father might actually be trying to train her to help lead the pack herself instead of just being a brood mare. It took one, single conversation with her ex to bring that to light. Dense as a bag of hammers is the phrase that comes to mind.

Her emotions seemed to dictate everything she did and she was incredibly fickle. A man who she loved as a brother turned into a potential lover (which was exciting to read and had real potential to add to the story) and then five minutes later a brother again for no apparent reason (hopes for an interesting subplot dashed here). She believed with all her heart, and presented TONS of evidence, that she and her mother were completely different, yet it took ONE, SINGLE conversation to turn that on its head??

The romance was particularly painful. There was a ton of lust and it was clear that Marc loved her- (though I don't know why) but she had every reason in the world to say no... but then gets drunk and needs comfort and then figures, well, that was pretty fun, so what the heck! After spending the ENTIRE BOOK refusing to give the guy another chance? Really? I can honestly say that I hated her at that point. Not to mention the poor sod Jace who was in love with her (again, for no reason), but was shunted aside for no reason- the guy who was a MUCH more likeable character.

Lastly, her strength and ruthlessness seemed to be elusive. It APPEARS as though she is getting stronger and more vicious through the story. She goes through a completely random episode of "bloodlust" which turns out to be nearly meaningless. She develops a unique ability to shift partway, making her more deadly, but then doesn't use it at the climax of the story. She negotiates with her father and GIVES UP TWO YEARS OF HER LIFE to him in order to lead the team to go after the bad guy, but then not only does she not kill him herself as she promised she would, she CAN'T EVEN WATCH!!! There is even a baffling random comment about how she really can't imagine having to do this for the Pack (which is essentially what she just promised to do... right?) and how she wishes Marc were like her and didn't want to either- giving us ANOTHER reason why they don't belong together, yet there they are.

At the end of this book, I felt like I LOST instead of won. The heroine ended up in the EXACT position she spent the entire book fighting to avoid. So am I supposed to come away believing she learned her lesson and will live up to family responsibility or am I supposed to believe she is going to find a way to live her own life anyway? No, I'm sorry. I hated this. It was a damn shame, because I really enjoyed the writing style. It could have been a good, solid urban fantasy, but instead, I just get more annoyed with it the longer I think about it. I have to go read something else quickly in order to get it off my mind.

RECOMMENDATIONS: There are so many better examples...
1. Kelley Armstrong's Bitten: A Novel (The Otherworld) - the main characters shift between witches, demons, vamps and weres, but the first book is a were book and a great example of what this book could have been. Strong female lead dealing with oppressive male testosterone, but maintaining her own independence.
2. Patricia Brigg's skinwalker/were/shifter centric Moon Called (Mercy Thompson)
3. Kresley Cole's A Hunger Like No Other (Immortals After Dark, Book 1) - hot & heavy romance series with shifting main characters, but very strong women
4. Faith Hunter's bounty-hunter shifter series Skinwalker (Jane Yellowrock, Book 1) - more independence, less romance, no pack politics.
5. Christine Warren's Wolf at the Door (The Others, Book 1) - somewhat inconsistent, but often awesome paranormal romance series. Oddly enough the book I didn't like this series was the one that focused on werecats- because of the weak female lead. Skip that one.
6. Vivian Arend's Wolf Signs: Granite Lake Wolves, Book 1 - not as well written, but a fun, light were-romance series
7. Moira Rogers': Cry Sanctuary: Book 1 of Red Rock Pass series - again, not as good as the first few, but a light, basic were romance series.