Fight like a girl…or a shifter of lore.

After growing up with nothing, I’ve finally found my path to freedom: I’m a shifter, an elite soldier who transforms into a monster.

All I have to do is survive.

I didn’t count on my three 6’5 roommates. Covered in tattoos, jeweled, and horned, these are like no men I’ve ever dealt with before.

They don’t think I belong.
They don’t think I’m strong enough for war.
They don’t think I can fight.

I’m about to prove them wrong.

The only problem, can I survive them discovering the secrets of my past? In the battle for life and death, everyone is so much more than they seem.

Jax, Ascher, and Cobra are going to be devastated when they discover my truth…just wait until they see my shifted form.

Again, I’ve found my reading memento and am enjoying the ride for all its worth. I knew I was going to dive right into this book after finishing the two Hercule’s books because I wanted to see if the author could write in a style that I would enjoy, and turns out she can. This book was fire.

I’m sure I’ve said it before but there is an art to writing shifter novels. Some people do it really well. Other people write without a functioning plot and with badly written porn.

Having read the two Hercules books, I knew I was about to meet a badass strong woman and Sadie is more than I expected. Equally tortured and traumatised as Alexis was, with resilience and strength to end wars. She has been too harshly punished in her short life and has developed natural defences for surviving what most people would die from.

The interruption to her miserable life, comes when she is tested to see if she is an alpha, beta, or omega. It quite literally turns her life upside down and brings her to – in her opinion – another sector of hell.

Here she meets Cobra, Jax, and Ascher. The three alpha’s guarding Portal Three. Out of the three of them, Jax is the most stable. Cobra has possibly more trauma than Sadie and is harsh and callous. Ascher is a hothead with a vicious cutting tone. He obnoxiously calls Sadie princess and it grates on her as much as it grates on me.

Each of these alphas are built for battle with their own sinful beauty that attract Sadie in before she remembers that no one in the world is safe to be around and that she has to look after herself because no one else will.

After some unfortunate events, Sadie finds herself rooming with the three alphas and there is A LOT of sexual tension in that bedroom. Unfortunately, Sadie is not sexually knowledgeable, so a lot of the talk from the three alpha’s don’t hit as they think they would. She has no experience of their behaviour.

Jax is the leader of the three alphas, he has the dominant alpha voice that can command others. He is – mostly – calm and controlled. He has, to my understanding, lived a long life and is currently romantically involved with Cobra.

Cobra is fuelled, I think, by what he has endured in the past. It is alluded to that he spent time in the fae world ‘captured’ and that that time wasn’t at all pleasant. He is quick to anger and takes it out on those he sees as less than him. He challenges Sadie far too much, not recognising the signs that he is pushing too far.

Ascher is the definition of a fuckwad. The kind of guy who lets his mouth run away with itself and then realises the damage he may have done. He is most vocal about putting Sadie down.

The reader learns as Sadie learns and we learn through her eyes. Untrustworthy men are left right and centre. She’s attracted to the alphas but she also wants to be independent and stand apart from them. She bonds with a beta named Aran, they seem to have a close friendship and honestly I thought he was gay until events unfolded. She also forms a friendship with Zed who is a null (human without shifter abilities).

We also learn through a book that Zed points Sadie towards, that the worlds known to Sadie and others aren’t correct but by the end of the book it is still unknown why, or what mystery is lurking.

There is the constant pressure of the fae attacking the portal. It is what the alphas and betas are there to protect after all. I hadn’t really put much stock into what fae would appear until they did and I realised the fae I’d been imagining did not belong in this realm. Lots of legs, lots of eyes, sharp claws…

The ending and reveal was half expected and half took me by surprise. The expected part I’d worked out. The surprise part I wasn’t prepared for but I’m intrigued to see how it unravels through the next book and later into the series.