Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

Hi and welcome to your Wednesday fix of Shapeshifter Seductions! This week, I am reviewing "Captive Moon" by C.T. Adams and Cathy Clamp, book three of "Tales of the Sazi" series. It is currently available but hard to find in book stores, so you’ll need to order it on-line.

Antoine Monier is Rex. The huge cougar isn't just an alpha, he's the alpha cat of the Sazi. He's the representative for the cats on the Sazi High Council, one of the most powerful seers of the Sazi, and a world class entertainer, to boot.
While touring Germany with his troupe of real cats and Sazi employees, someone steals a 2-year-old tiger. When the Stuttgart Police find the bodies of dozens of big cats slaughtered for their internal organs, they call Antoine to come identify the body of his missing tiger. While Antoine does find his cat's body, he also found the scent of a Sazi. And she isn't among the dead!

Antoine finds out the police did, indeed, find a live female tiger. After a battle of wills and a bit of magical persuasion, he convinces the authorities that the report of his loosing a male tiger was inaccurate and that he'd lost a female. Antoine gets her out of protective custody before she is forced by her waining magic to reveal her human form. All saved right? Wrong.

Tahira isn't Sazi at all- she's a Caspian tiger from the Hayalet Kabile, a clan of shape shifters who’d refused to join the other clans when they formed the Sazi. Just talking to the Sazi can be grounds for being accused of treason. She’d been captured in Turkey while trying to find her brother. Little did she know, the mastermind who’d hired the black market animal traders hadn’t been after her brother Rabi, they’d been after her!

Tahira is a power well, a type of shifter so rare they are thought to be myth. And the evil snake shifter who is after her has pinned his plans to bring about the end of the world on finding Tahira and using her powers to bring to life an evil scourge. It will take a huge leap of faith from the sheltered tigress and the unlikely team work from Antoine and Ahmad to stop this evil plot.

In this installment, we again meet Ahmad, the extremely unpleasant councilman for the snakes as well as his father, Sargon, who is the main antagonist throughout most of the series. We get a better look at were-spiders and what they are capable of. And last but not least, we are introduced to Nasil, who is a catalyst throughout the entire series, but not always a “bad guy.”

I enjoyed this story very much. It is written in a more conventional romance format than the previous two books in the series and doesn’t bog you down with unnecessary detail without explaining it a bit. Also, there is a clear hero and heroine who meet and fall in love while solving a riddle and have a clear happily-ever-after. This installment does move the series story arch along, but it is not yet clear just what that story arch is.

It should be noted, for those who are less comfortable with alternative life styles, there is a bit of S&M themed bed play and a gay couple who feature prominently in this book. They don’t go too in-depth, but it is there.
And to finish off with a little extra:

MSN has a rather amusing gallery of the “hottest” vampires and werewolves. It’s mostly vampires, but there are some very nummy ‘wolves (and wolverines) included.

http://glo.msn.com/relationships/vampires-and-werewolves-hottest-in-history-4521.gallery

Next week, I’ll be reviewing “Howling Moon”, book four of the series. We will meet Raphael, a wolf, and his mate, Catherine, a were-panther who was turned by the infamous Jack. We will also get the back story on Jack, but he won’t sound too forgivable until farther into the series. Have a great rest of the week and a safe holiday weekend!

Until next time,

Rebecca

RebeccaLGillan.com