Book review 11: The Mane Event, G.A.Aiken (a.k.a. Shelly Laurenston)

The Mane Event (Pride #1) by Shelly Laurenston (aka G.A.Aiken)

German Version

Things to know:

• I read the translated German version (original in English)
• It was published January 2007 (German version in November 2011)
• It has 391 pages (German 464)
• It is set in New York (I'd guess early 2000s)
• I started: 15th February 2015 and ended it: 18th Feb
• Book 1 of "Pride" Series
• Is set in the same world as the "Magnus Pack" Series, just shortly after, you don't need to read that though :)

This book includes 2 stories.

The first one is about Desiree "Dez" MacDermot and Mason "Mace" Llewellyn. Mace is an alpha Lion who was in the Navy for 14 years and wants nothing else than to find his high school love Dez, a NYPD cop and ex-Marine. They quickly meet each other after a member of Mace's pride is killed, and Mace tries his best to convince Dez to have a date with him. Everything turns out quite well, but when Dez meets an informant she is slightly poisoned, before she collapses on the streets Mace finds her and takes her to her place to care for her. Whilst Dez sleeps and gets better Mace finds out that she has two dogs - Sig and Sauer, well trained and usually rip everyone apart. But when Dez wakes up she notices that her dogs are scared of Mace, thus Mace has to explain to her, that he is a shapeshifter...

The second story is about Rhonda "Ronnie" Lee Rees and Brendon Shaw. Whilst Brendon is a lion shapeshifter who already has 2 children with two different women of his pride, Ronnie is a Werewolf who wants to settle down - but just a little bit!

When Brendon is attacked by hyenas and another lion pride Dez, Ronnie and the wolf pack rescue him. When in hospital, fighting a fever which may cause death Rhonda is the only one who stays at his side. But then he gets attacked in hospital and Ronnie gets him out of there to her aunts' house in Long Island. When shapeshifters have a fever, they act strangely, slightly as if they where high. So Ronnie has to catch him when he escapes and walks along the street in his lion form. 

The real problem is though, that even though Brendon is completely in love with Ronnie, the latter is scared of her (and his) feelings...

I've read quite a lot of books by Aiken, this is why I wanted to read this one as well. It is shortly mentioned in the first story, that it is set in the same world as her "Magnus Pack" series, but no information of that series is needed at all :)

Though I liked to read it, as something I don't have to think about it, I have to say that at some point Aiken's characters do resemble each other and somehow most of them fear love in someway or another... They are great stories if you only read one series, but if you read more (This is my 3rd) the characters do seem boring... I will carry on with the series though - it's some kind of sickness I have; when I start a series I just have to finish it. And honestly, this book wasn't that bad :)

Lisa~