Review: In Need of Redemption
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 4, 2011
3-1/2 starsDeep in the Amazon live the Yaguara, an ancient jaguar shape-shifting people where strength is everything. Blamed for a crime and banished from his people, Adriano has been making a living as a mercenary. He hopes by recovering an ancient artifact hidden at one of his people's temple, he will be able to buy his way back into his tribe. Only, there are humans scouring the site. Despite their inability to locate the REAL temple within the dig site, Adriano doesn't want to leave it to chance so he sets himself up as the security detail on the site. While watching the humans, he meets Sophie. Sophie's research is dependent on discovering the secrets hidden at the temple. When this unlikely couple hit it off, one's goal seems to counter the other's. However, when Sophie is kidnapped, Adriano is forced to choose between his tribe who rejected him and the possibility of a new future.When I readMercylast year, I was happy to discover an interesting and fresh new story about shifters, which I really enjoyed. Even though I enjoyed REDEMPTION, I don't feel that it was as good as the first one. The first involved mostly all shifters, whereas this story was about a shifter in the human world and her reaction when she discovers his furry side. The POV shifts between Adriano and Sophie, so we get a lot of back and forth on their take of things and their assumptions (which aren't always true and we know this because we get to see inside both their heads.)For me, I think the story dragged because Sophie doesn't learn about Adriano's furry side until half-way into the book (it was about 51% marker.) That was a LOT of time of not really knowing each other. Also, the first half was just a lot of watching and setting up the scene. After this point though, there was a lot of action and adventure. However, the political intrigue that really held my interest in the first book just didn't really seem to gel for me in this one--it almost didn't make sense.This was an enjoyable short story. I really hope there are more to come.SERIESMercyRedemption