We have a new monthly recommendation feature debuting today: READY, SET, GO!
Here are the rules:
We pick a specific sub-genre, trope, or type of romance, and we have to make ONE recommendation for that type.
ONE.
ONLY ONE.
And no more than two sentences as to why.
Yes, just one. Which one book do you pick to fill that rec?
Our first one:
What do you think is the best SHIFTER ROMANCE you’d recommend? Ready, set, GO!
Me: Slave to Sensation, Nalini Singh. I love her shifters, and the idea of “skin privileges” as a method for talking about physical intimacy, and I love all the shifter books in this series the most.
Amanda: Wicked Deeds on a Winter’s Night by Kresley Cole. It’s still early in the Immortals After Dark series that you can read this on its own and used to be my VERY FAVORITE book in the series for a long time (it’s now third). It’s enemies to lovers between a witch and Scottish werewolf, and it’s definitely a book where he HATES how much he’s attracted to her.
Maya: Hot and Badgered by Shelly Laurenston! I love the relationship between the half-sisters and liberal application of total chaos.
Sarah: HELL YEAH. Team Honey Badgers. I debated picking a Crows book but could not decide if they counted as shifters.
Maya: Well, now I’m gonna spend the whole day wondering if the Crows are shifters.
Sarah: I don’t think they are, as they don’t transform into another creature or animal. They sprout wings as needed? Not quite the same.
Tara: I haven’t read it in years, but Gill McKnight has one called Ambereye that’s also a boss/employee romance. The character work is really good, especially as Hope and Jolie are figuring each other out, and it’s occasionally hilarious.
Charlotte B: Magic Dreams by Ilona Andrews. Nearsighted vegetarian tiger shifter teams up with her hardass-yet-dreamy jaguar shifter alpha to battle a demon-thingy. It’s funny, actiony, and very romantic – and avoids a lot of standard shifter tropes that always get my hackles up (e.g., fated mates, painfully macho alphas, and suffocatingly strict and borderline abusive pack hierarchies).
Aarya: Charlie Adhara’s The Wolf at the Door (m/m PNR romantic suspense). Werewolf + human federal agent team up to solve mysteries. The first book is good; books 2 and 3 are exceptional with shapeshifter politics and family dynamics.
Lara: It would have to be the first shifter romance I read: Secrets of the Wolf by Karen Whiddon. It blew my mind at the time and I reread it so many times in my very early 20s, but I’m 35 now and hesitant to revisit it in case it hasn’t aged well; though I remember it with such fondness.
Ellen: The Shadow Warrior by Ann Aguirre. Quasi dystopic/fantasy PNR with elves, shifters, and demons; the inter-group politics and romance are very well-done & there’s lots of sex. Kind of a cheat since it’s not the first in the series, but it’s my favorite one, lol.
Sneezy: I’ll have to go with Moira Rogers’ Enigma in the Southern Arcana series!!!! Badass wolf shifter and mega powered spell caster, coming to terms with their grief and learning to love themselves so they can love each other!!! Crazy hot sex, supportive community helping each other, and everyone braving the wilds of their crazy heart!
OK, your turn!
Which one book do you think is the BEST SHIFTER ROMANCE you’d recommend? Ready, set, go!
Anything by Dana Marie Bell. I just love her books. But I especially love Bear Necessity. Geeky shifters for the win!
Alpha & Omega by Patricia Briggs. Anna is changed to a werewolf agains her will and Charles is the powerful and scary enforcer of the head Werewolf of North America. He’s sensitive, lonely and supportive of Anna while she overcomes her traumas and they work together to take down evil werewolves.
@Kate, I agree. The Alpha & Omega book is a wonderful novella that sets up the series perfectly.
Bitten by Kelley Armstrong. First female werewolf and Clay!
Marjorie Liu kind of ruined everybody else’s shifters for me a decade ago. International, full of lore, plot heavy. Start with Tiger Eye.
Jane yellowrock is great although the romance is a very long slow burn.
Shelly Laurenston’s Bite Me is my favorite shifter book. I love the sheer chaos and the way her characters actually have fun being shifters. The everything happens all at once vibe makes the book a great distraction and the sheer joy I got realizing that she had come up with honey badger shifters still carries through on rereads. It’s extra great if you watch a documentary on honey badgers first, I love how actual honey badger behavior is used to develop how honey badger shifters behave.
Second Charlie Adhara’s wolf-shifter books. Partly because the shifting is absolutely not the main thing about them. What actually morphs is the brilliant relationship between Cooper and Park.
[The words in my head as I read your introduction to this feature: “Bitches ain’t gonna abide by no two-sentence rule! And I’ll leave it at that.]]
I don’t read much shifter romance, but I strongly recommend Kati Wilde’s TEACHER’S PET WOLF: the hero is a wolf shifter, born into a shifter family; the heroine is a shy teacher who was attacked by a wolf and became a shifter (her attack had nothing to do with the hero or his family). The hero helps the heroine adjust to her new reality. I’m not sure if Wilde gets all the tropes and conventions of shifting correct, but I can tell you the book has some of the hottest sexy-times I read last year.
Geez, these just one things kill me. And you want one book, not a series? Seriously?
FINE! I’ll go with Kristen Callihan’s Moonglow. In a hit-or-miss series, this was a stand out. Ian, who was an ass in the first book, redeems himself admirably. Daisy is a fearless delight. It also delivers a one/two punch of emotion.
@DiscoDollyDeb: I thought of another favorite and briefly considered posting under a different name to get around the THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE rule, but I’m just too honest, dammit.
(Chaotic Neutral, though, so I’ma just leave this idea casually lying around where anybody could pick it up…)
Well if we can only pick one then my choice is definitely Wolfsong by TJ Klune. One of my all time favorite books period.
All the ones I was gonna pick have already been named. But then I remembered one of my favorite comfort reads, Taken, by Lilith Saintcrow. There’s a lot of well-handled emotional work for the characters to get through before their HEA, and I’ve never seen this animal in a were- story before.
Nalini Singh, Psy/Changeling anything. One of the few series I still buy in print.
Bear Meets Girl by Shelley Laurenston – My favorite of her shifter books. A high-energy tiger forces a grumpy polar bear out of his shell. It’s Laurenston so hi-jinks and violence ensue!
(by the way, I love this idea!)
Jennifer Ashley White Tiger – Tiger is super cool, but her whole shifter world is super fun to visit.
Wolf Signs by Vivian Arend. A sweet romance with a deaf heroine, and she tells the hero he can fuck off with the “fated mates” thing.
TEMPTING DANGER, the first book in the World of the Lupi by Eileen Wilks. Lily is a smart, strong, determined cop whose world is thrown into chaos when she meets Rule, a werewolf prince. One reason I love this series is that even though they are fated mates (and in fact can’t be far away from each other without causing them actual pain), they don’t instantly fall in love, but instead have to navigate and negotiate an actual relationship in spite of the impulses pushing them together.
Dragon Bound by Thea Harrison. Because I love her writing and because he’s a dragon.
Wait, wait!! Has no one mentioned Eileen Wilks’ World of the Lupi series yet? Start with “Tempting Danger,” and then read on. You’re welcome!
@DiscoDollyDeb – There aren’t really any hard and fast rules about shifter romance except that they have to be romances. Every author builds their own shifter world with its own rules (Hence the fated mates debate; it’s not required but it’s popular so you see it a lot.)
Kati Wilde’s shifter world is one of the most unique I’ve read in terms of origin and mates.
Anne Bishop’s Others series.
No one has listed Cleo Peitsche’s Touching Paradise yet? or the I-hope-pseudonymous Passions of the Wereshark? Must be rampant galeophobia.
(I swear I found the Peitshce through here, too, for similar reasons, but failed at searching the site.)
Clayton by Rachelle Mills – she takes the whole paranormal shifter subgenre to a whole new level with her incredible writing and characters. This will take you to Dallas and then Cassius by her.
“Kitty’s House of Horrors” by Carrie Vaughn. (Book 7 in the Kitty Norville series) Kitty is a werewolf. She agrees to join the cast of the first supernatural reality show, expecting only manufactured drama, but people start dying for real.
@MaryK, a fine choice, but it’s for rainbow pooping Pia.
Alpha and Omega for me too. Unless YA romance is allowed, in which case I pick Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver.
Read a lot of shifters. I agree about Wilks and Laurenston on the shifters. Very standout characters.
My rec: Once Upon A Tiger by Kit Simons. Novella set with a woman shifter determining her fate against the patriarchy. And a deaf shifter determined to protect her as a partner and not as alphahole.
Wolves of Willow Bend Series by Heather Long. The first couples of books are my least favourites, but the Author started building a complex and interesting world with inter-related plots and relationships that became a series I could not put down – it just kept getting better with each book until books 5-14 are B+ to A++ ratings for me.
@DonnaMarie – I tend to forget that she’s a shifter, too, since she doesn’t for almost the whole book.
Sorry me again – accidentally posted too soon. In the Wolves of Willow Bend Series the book was Ghost Wolf where enigmatic Chief Enforcer Julian’s mate is revealed. Loved that most of the Heroines in this series are kick ass and strong male shifters are mated with strong capable females.
Maria Vale’s The Last Wolf–with two types of werewolves!–is my most recommended book of the year and my favorite shifter romance ever. It also features an amazing description of a thwarted rape attempt, but I won’t ruin it for you.
I’d say Shelly Laurenston’s The Undoing, although I’m not entirely sure the California Crows are quite shifters in the traditional sense. Awesome interesting female lead character, plus the absolutely perfect guy for her.
Although I love many listed here, I’m going to suggest the first shifter book I ever read, introducing me into a world of paranormal delights. The Wolf’s Hour, by Robert R. McCammon, kind of like a shifter James Bond-esk spy and hero in WWII.
How has no one mentioned any of Charlie Cochet’s THIRDS series?!? You do kind of have to start at the beginning with Hell and High Water. The first isn’t necessarily my favorite, but it sets the whole series up. Humor, angst, drama, action, hot sex, predator cats in boxes, geeky references, 80s music references, it’s got it all.
https://charliecochet.com/series/thirds
Buy some gummy bears and cheese doodles before you start the book/series. Trust me.
And I’ll agree with all the Shelly Laurenston. Picking a favorite of hers is *hard*.
The wildflower series by Rachelle Mills
Clayton by Rachelle Mills, winner of the 2016 Watty Award, Most Voracious Read https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L6M968D/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_VKmlEbMD2Y1KK
I .love the lupi series by Eileen Wilks. Does anyone know when the final book is set to be published?
Wolfsong by TJ Klune … Mesmerizing.
The Mercy Series. Hit all the right buttons for me.. plus A&O
Coyote shifter meets wolf. Or Wolf meets wolf.