Review: Great creation of a shifter world, but needs more editing.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 11, 2013
I received this collection in exchange for an honest review from the author through the Goodreads' group "Lovers of Paranormal". The Louisiana Shifter Collection contains three stories, two of which are full length novels (Louisiana Shifter Series #1, #1.5, & #2). This series brings you into a world of shifters, with a little dose of witches, magic, and more. The world the author has spun runs parallel with the real world, thus hardly derails from what real life is like. Because of this, a reader can find her/himself believing that actual portals and paranormal beings could possibly exist in some way. It is hard to make a paranormal romance story believable, but I believe Wood pulled this off. The intimate scenes were very steamy, and I thought there was just the right amount to balance out all three stories.Here was my dilemma. I can read a book, and overlook grammar mistakes if it doesn't interfere with the story too much. What I can't overlook is inconsistencies. When I read a book, I like to picture the story, and get lost in the words. I hate when I am jarred out of that when something doesn't make sense. Most happened in the first story, Shifter In Ascent. Just a few examples; One moment she's sitting and he's kneeling in front of her, and the next, she "stood on tiptoe" to kiss him. I went back to see if I missed where they stood up, but it wasn't there. There were so many of these. She's naked but then he has to remove her clothes, talking to someone in a raid but not three pages before it mentioned that he stayed behind. Even little things like tossing a quarter to the couch, but the next paragraph, he opens the door so they can go inside. All of these things threw me off too much that I couldn't enjoy the story. By the end of the first story, I didn't want to go on, but I gave my word that I would read them all. By the end of the second, I still didn't want to go on. The stories seemed to have no climactic event and felt like they fizzled out at the end. I still went on though, and I am glad that I did. The third story, Shifter's Legacy, was everything I look for in a good book. I was hooked from the very beginning. It was as if all the grammar mistakes and wrong names of characters in the other two stories just disappeared. There was action, suspense, and had me at the edge of my seat. I was so happy until the very end when there was another inconsistency and it threw me off once again. If I mention what it is, I would spoil the ending, and I can't do that.What's funny is that my favorite story was obviously the third one, but my favorite part was from the first story. I LOVED the GAME. It was fun to read, a great way to introduce new characters, and had me smiling the entire time it was being described. Overall, I believed the author did very well setting up the Shifter world, and if it wasn't for the inconsistencies, I would probably have given it a higher rating, but I just can't. If it wasn't for the last story, the rating would have been possibly a 2 or 2.5.