Review: Stray - Rachel Vincent

Stray by Rachel Vincent

Shifters book 1

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Published: 2007
Pages: 624

I look like an all-American grad student. But I am a werecat, a shape-shifter, and I live in two worlds.

Despite reservations from my family and my Pride, I escaped the pressure to continue my species and carved out a normal life for myself. Until the night a Stray attacked.

I'd been warned about Strays , werecats without a Pride, constantly on the lookout for someone like me: attractive, female, and fertile. I fought him off, but then learned two of my fellow tabbies had disappeared.

This brush with danger was all my Pride needed to summon me back , for my own protection. Yeah, right. But I'm no meek kitty. I'll take on whatever and whoever, I have to in order to find my friends. Watch out, Strays, 'cause I got claws, and I'm not afraid to use them.

Oh I truly enjoyed this book. It was fast paced, and kept my attention. The only reason it took so long to read it was that I was too busy and that it was really long.

Faythe is a kick-ass heroine, I am not just saying that. No, she has been taught to fight since she was little and has played with the boys on the family farm. That is the other werecat boys that lives with her family since her dad is the alpha for a big area. She has claws, and she can keep her own. What she mostly want is freedom. The ratio female-male cats is huge, and her family would like to see her settled with babies, she is to take over. Instead she ran off to college. But now she must return. Someone is hunting tabbies and she has been targeted.

I was not sure if I would like her because she is so aggressive and more at times, but the more I read the more I understood. So much was hanging over her shoulders. She has a right to some privacy, but still there were some things I did not like. When she laughed at a couple of places, she should have been more terrified, angry or something other than that. It continued, and I mean yes she is strong but that felt wrong.

What about romance then, oh yes I got some of that too. First some sexual tension and then so more sexual tension. Still she did forget about her boyfriend pretty fast when she went on flirting with Jace. And then there was Marc, the guy she left when she went to College. Oh he was all Alpha, and everyone knew it, she knew it too and that is part of the problem. I could not wait to see sparks fly again there. I do wonder how that will play out.

The latter part of the book was so intense, it kept me on the edge of my seat and I just wanted to turn the pages faster and faster. It gets pretty terrifying and there is a lot of violence and horror.

Sure this book was very long, but it was needed. You had to see it all before the end can come. And those very intense long pages went pretty fast since I had to know what happened, at that second.

This was a great start to a series, and I will read more. If the other books are as good then I am in for an awesome ride. And hey I have always like cats.

Blodeuedd's Cover Corner: I like it, it is so her.

Reason 4 Reading: My own book

Final thoughts: Oh liking it :D Yes a series to read.