Savage Hunger (Heart of the Jaguar #1)
by Terry Spear
Blurb:
In the heat of the jungle, jaguars are clawed, dangerous, and hungry for love. With hopes of overcoming night terrors and thanking the man who saved her life, Kathleen McKnight returns to the Amazon. A jaguar at heart, Connor Anderson doesn’t just protect her, but wants to claim her for his own.
Review:
This book was the first in a new series
by Terry Spear. Her series about Wolves
has always been a favorite of mine so when I heard she was writing a new series
about Jaguar shifters I was very excited.
Set in the Amazon, this story was an amazing intro to a new type of
shifter and a new storyline.
Kat McKnight is a special ops agent
working to bring down a major drug cartel leader in Colombia. While on her mission, she is captured by the
cartel with plans for a brutal and terrifying end to her life. When her men are ambushed she’s left with no
escape and very little hope for surviving her mission. But luckily for Kat,
Connor Anderson, an American Jaguar shifter, happened to be vacationing in the
Amazon and comes to her rescue. After
killing her captures and leaving a lasting impression on Kat, Connor disappears
into the darkness when her backup arrives.
One year later, Connor is again prowling
through the jungle, letting his cat free in its natural home and enjoying his
time in the wild. Running through the
forest he comes across a woman, traveling alone and is instantly
entranced. Though she looks very
different, Connor realizes the woman is really the woman he rescued one year
ago and obsessed over for months and she has returned looking for her savior. Conner’s cat knows that this woman is very
special and the man inside is beyond intrigued.
Kat suddenly finds herself in the
company of two beautiful jaguars and though her brain says to run, her instincts
are telling her to trust the cats to keep her safe. After all, this is their natural habitat, not
hers. The cats lead her to their
“masters”, Connor and his sister Maya.
She travels with them to their sanctuary in the jungle hoping to find
safety. Maya however has decided that it
is time for her brother (and ultimately herself) to find a mate. Knowing how captivated Connor was with Kat
after her rescue, she takes matters in her own hands, attempting to infect Kat
and turn her into a fellow Jaguar.
Inadvertently Maya causes Kat to fall extremely ill, but during her
sickness Connor begins to fall for Kat even more.
Kat wakes from her sickness with just a
little something extra; she can become a Jaguar! Terrified and unable to shift
back to her human form, Connor must track Kat down and use his more dominant
cat to force her back to their home.
Coming to terms with the new world she finds herself in, Kat and Connor
let their lust free with Connor knowing he’ll never let her leave him now. When their sanctuary is invaded, the new
little family decides it is time to return to the states. However, nothing is ever a simple as it
seems.
With the cartel on their tails (wink
wink! Nudge nudge!), Kat, Connor, and Maya travel across Colombia dealing with
ambushes, attacks, and suspicions of another shifter following them. There are a lot of hilarious scenes
including an unforgettable scene in a car with two humans, a jaguar and a bag
of burritos. Trust me you’ll be cracking up! In the end, with a sadly anticlimactic confrontation
in a hotel hallway, the cartel leader is dead and the new family of Jaguars
makes their way home to Texas.
I
will say that the first love scene in the story was a bit lackluster and
ill-timed in my opinion, but Ms. Spear definitely makes up for that in later
scenes of the book. The sensuality of
these two cats is evident in the interactions of their human halves for
sure. There are some very interesting
scenes involving water, because of course with water-loving cats there has to
be at least one scene with a waterfall!
The
strangest thing about this book for me was that the mythology was a bit
confusing to me. It seemed that neither
Maya nor Connor really knew anything about their heritage, except that their
parents were cats, and Dad was a complete ass.
I’m hoping that when another shifter comes into the picture (perhaps their
stalker Wade?) we will learn more about their shifter natures. Wade seems to be a little bit more knowledgeable
about his cat so hopefully he’ll make a good source of information in the next
book. My only other issue with the book
was Maya. Her character was a bit
selfish and immature to me, until she finally stepped up and started helping
more with problems instead of causing them.
Overall
the story was a fun and steamy read, with some laughs, some gasps, and a lot of
buildup for the new series. Looking
forward to more Jaguar Shifter books by Ms. Spear. Jaguar
Fever, the next in the series is expected in august if 2013, so keep a sharp
eye open for the next in this fun new series.