Review: Bonds of Blood & Spirit: Loyalties (#1)

This is actually a book I reviewed about a year ago, but I swear I have a good reason for posting it now.  For one, it's really, really good, and I don't want anyone to miss out on it. For another, I'm about to finish the series and post those reviews, and wouldn't it be annoying to see those reviews, and know nothing about the first book?! It would bug me!

Originally, I gave it 4 stars, but I'm changing it to 5 for a very simple reason: I remember it, and I remember it well.  I was reviewing quite a bit at that time, and to be honest, I have a terrible memory. And the fact that I still remember it, and how much I liked it...definitely changing it to 5 Stars!

And the important part, here's the review:

This book was refreshing from the very beginning in its originality on its take of shifters, where they come from, and how they do or don’t fit together, with humans, and with other “creatures” in the world. It definitely was not cookie-cutter, with bitten, turned, so on, and so on. I don’t want to give too much away, but this book definitely had an intriguing look at how shifters come to be, how they find each other, and what it means to be a shifter. It was also a very different, slightly more believable look at what other creatures would really be like (again, don’t want to give too much away about who/what they come across).

Regina Capalini is a great character. I love a strong female lead, but I also liked that in her case, she was realistically strong. She was tough, and certainly not someone that you would want to come across in battle; she was confident in her abilities as a shifter, but she was also able to admit there were areas that she was NOT strong, and wasn’t one of the characters that refused to face it, and you spend the entire book wondering when the denial would end, when it was so clear to everyone else in the beginning. Regina instead acknowledges she has issues with personal relationships, and is trying to find ways to fix them rather than hide them.

This is where Diego is one of the characters fits in so perfectly in her life; the alpha to look up to like she never had in her life before. There are so many things I adore about Diego, and was interestingly my favorite character in the book. He wasn’t anyone’s love interest, and probably wouldn’t be considered a “main” character, but he brought so much life, substance, and emotion to the book. He was the glue for everyone.

As we met each character along the way, they all melded so well together, and it was believable that they could all quickly become family. I’m usually a pretty strong critic in stories where people fall in love, or become best friends in 2 days, but this author did a great job in explaining why this COULD be possible, and why specifically in the shifter world, it works. I was definitely impressed by that.

This author did a great job in building relationships, making a really good shifter world, and keeping multiple story lines not lose momentum, and meet up perfectly at the end. I am definitely interested in seeing where book 2 ends up taking us!