This is essentially a prequel trilogy of the highland dragon series.

Hmmm... Well, it's not a bad read. OTOH, it could do with some more...meat. I do like the time period better in the previous series - medieval Scotland is a popular (possibly overdone to be honest) setting and as such, only the idea of dragons got me to buy this.

Our h is visiting the home of our friendly neighborhood dragons to do experiments on their scales. Our H is home convalescing after a run-in with a sorcerer (actually, warlock might be the proper term here) She asks for scales, he says sure - if she'll help his friend who is slowly fading...like a nazgul. Much meandering later... potions were made, but we were only privy to a few. The guy isn't quite so invisible, but he's still not himself. The sorcerer has made several psychic attacks on the h...

They figure out where he lives and come up with brilliant idea of paying him a visit before he gets home. Figure out who he is, take care of the problems, etc.

The real complaint I have here is that it takes place over several months and you only get bits and pieces of that, most of it random. It's...disjointed, particularly compared to the books that came before. You see the H/h being attracted to each other, but they don't seem to be around each other much. Add to that, a background that could be delved into more, but isn't, a castle that theoretically is the same one seen in a later book but doesn't really seem the same, and something that does bug me a bit - a Jewish person delving into magic (something that's specifically spoken against in the OT). There was something else mentioned briefly - a dragon who apparently had kids with more than one female.

Bottom line - as background for the highland dragon series, you feel compelled to read it, but then you wonder why.

Panda and the Kitty - Eve Langlais

It struggled for that 3, much as I struggled to even get into it.

Our H/h, both shifters, and apparently mates, met way too young I think. He had family obligations, and she had the understanding of a gnat. She spent way too much time dwelling on his "letting her down" when she knew the family he was from to start with so what exactly did she expect him to do?

He took up drinking apparently because of this and was a nasty drunk. Enter mommy dearest who flat out tells him she has no feelings for her family, then disappears him for over 3 months where she experiments on him, then dumps him at the family compound. He eventually leaves and disappears for a bit, then after an apparent arrest attempt, finds himself shifting into a completely different animal.

Things that bug me... ah...most of the book? Nobody stopping to think maybe he had a tracker on him courtesy of his "loving" mother? Nobody ever stopping to consider the orphan might have come from the lab? Really, she could hide her scent. The h's attitude towards the H. The fact that we get a second round of some evil person experimenting on shifters. The lack of any real humor...

'Roo and the Angel - Eve Langlais

The later books in this series aren't as entertaining as the earlier ones. Oh, the previous one had its moments but to be honest, I think a large part of it is the whole "same plot, different antagonist" bit. Well, that and this book seemed to be rather light on the actual relationship development. Time was skipped, with the characters apart for various reasons, and what time they were together seemed to be in the middle of some sort of drama. IOW, how did they fall in love? They weren't together enough to even know what each other's full name was.

And really, I'm not sold on the whole "create mutants via experiments" theme when they seem to do just fine with that via interbreeding (the sabertoothed giant bunny from book 1 for example). In this case, they've created a mythical beastie which makes me think of the chimera series by the same author. Seems redundant.

Capturing a Unicorn - Eve Langlais

Perhaps this series would have been better wrapped up with the previous book. After all, once you've written the story about the central character, what's the point of continuing? And too, the purpose for this one feels more like a way of tying up loose ends, but it's done haphazardly.

The H... I kept picturing the reporter in Tim Burton's Batman (not Vickie Vale; the other one). He spends the first half of the book being an arse because mutants. We see a turnaround, but I'm not sure I believe it really.

The h... eh.

The background noise AKA the overarching plot is a conclusion on the whole "who's hunting them?" bit. Sortof. Because the people hunting them in the previous books aren't the ones hunting them now, but instead they're the H's mom's goons. Because of course. And of course, what better way to underscore that arsehole's initial attitude is wrong than to have mommy dearest give him the same treatment?

The real issue I had with this series in general is that it was all released over the course of a year or so, which means all the books were written entirely too close together for plot inconsistencies to occur. Book one had the H becoming a dick and getting locked away because he realized he had no freedom. Book two had the ones who went feral being hidden in a cage in a secret lab (even the secret lab has secret labs) and being "iced" if they went truly feral. Book 3 had the h with complete freedom to be a mercenary even though she's one of the experiments, and the ferals locked in cages on the level the H in book one was in, Book 4 was the outlier in that at the end of book 3, the lab was blown up so it took place at a house in the woods. Book five indicated that well, only the upper levels of the lab blew, and that a lot were left behind, locked in their cages to die. Strangely enough, that was never addressed after the H/h were collected and taken to that relic of a hotel the gang was hiding in.

And of course there's the bit where we have everyone being injected with all sorts of "natural" DNA, which explains one with wolf characteristics, one with lion characteristics, and one hyena. One could even sort of explain a mermaid - fish exist after all. But how do you get a phoenix? How do you get a unicorn? Demon/vampire/something or other? You kinda need an explanation there; things like that don't just appear out of nowhere.

And IS it over? It says "the end" at the end, but the tied ends are rather loose.