Reviewed by Vicki
TITLE: Eye of the Storm
SERIES: Key West Shifters
AUTHOR: Arielle Pierce
PUBLISHER: Self published
LENGTH: 164 pages
BLURB:
Nathan has never been in love. He’s never felt the pleasure of falling in love, never felt that sense of belonging that comes with being in love. Ever since the dolphin shifter’s pod was broken up by the appearance of a ruthless new leader in Key West’s shifter community, Nathan has turned his back on the one aspect of his life that always gave him joy–becoming Dolphin. Now, he hides in the shadows and pretends that the life he’s built for himself with a domineering, abusive boyfriend is exactly the life he wants.
Jacob has no intention of falling in love. The orca shifter has tracked Aiden, the Key West shifters’ leader, halfway around the world, and all he wants is to avenge his brother. Claiming a mate is the last thing on his mind, especially a mate as damaged as Nathan.
Caught in the path of a hurricane and the boiling maelstrom of their own feelings, Nathan and Jacob soon realize that thamalleir goals align as harmoniously as their bodies. Can they work together to defeat Aiden and bring back peace to the Key West shifter community and their own damaged hearts? Or will the coming storm leaving nothing but pain and destruction in its wake?
REVIEW:
I am a fan of shifter stories, and I like ones with more unique shifters. I was also in Key West for the first time a few months ago, so this book intrigued me. Dolphin shifters? Cool! I can read that!
This is an interesting world, there are lots of different shifter types all living in Key West, under the rule of Aiden, some sort of whale shifter I think. There are dolphins of several types, sharks, a chicken, a cat, and a puffer fish. Aiden is a crappy leader, allowing abuse to happen within his corner of the world. One of the shifters that is frequently abused, is Nathan, a small dolphin shifter. Nathan has been living with an abusive boyfriend, sneaking away occasionally to shift, and getting raped by the local dolphin gang. He fights this abuse, but then seems to like it. He’s an artist, living more in the human world than the shifter world.
Jacob is an orca shifter who has been tracking Aiden for some time, ever since he abused Jacob’s younger brother. He follows him to Key West, and settles in to make problems for Aiden. Aiden has Jacob followed, but Jacob knows and starts to befriend his stalkers. Michael, a cat shifter leads him to Toby, the puffer fish shifter, who lead him to Nathan, who turns out to be his mate. Jacob and Nathan meet, and both realize they are to be mates..
That’s how we get out two main characters together. Unfortunately the story was so scattered I didn’t really care if they got together or not! So the plot seemed to be Jacob and Nathan trying to lead a coup to unseat Aiden from power in Key West, while a hurricane is bearing down on them. On the personal side, they need to get Nathan away from his ex-boyfriend, and protect him from the abusive dolphin shifters. Seems simple enough to follow, but it was just odd. I didn’t get why it was so hard to get rid of Aiden, I didn’t understand why it took Jacob so long to find him, and why he kept following him around the world without actually doing anything to him. The big confrontation was weird, and the ending had no resolution to the Aiden situation at all. The drama between Nathan and his ex-boyfriend was weird too. There was no confrontation, it had all of this big build up, then nothing.
The writing was ok, it would have been better if this story was shorter I think. There was a lot of time spent on not much happening. The basic plot wasn’t bad, get the bad guy out, get Nathan away from Paul, and they all live happily ever after. It just wasn’t done as well as it could have been. I did like the concept of all of the various sea animal shifters living together, banding together against their bad leader. I liked several of the characters, Jacob and Nathan were ok, but I liked a couple of the side characters better. The setting of Key West was interesting, I wish more details had been used besides the very obvious touristy spots.
I’m not really sure what else to say, I didn’t hate this book, it was ok, there isn’t really anything bad about it, but it just wasn’t great.
RATING: 
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