Reviewed by Kimberley
TITLE: Pride and Joey
SERIES: Feral
AUTHOR: Devon Rhodes
PUBLISHER: Pride Publishing
LENGTH: 59 pages
RELEASE DATE: September 13, 2016
BLURB:
Vance thought his pride meant everything to him…until fate sent Joey into his lair and into his heart.
Vance has grown up the odd one out in a macho and very insular pride of lion shifters. Differences like enjoying the cool fall weather are bad enough—his pride mates would kill him if they learned he was gay. Still, his pride is all he knows. He’s never even met a shifter of another type…until he discovers an unconscious cougar male in his lair.
Joey is on the run and wants to keep Vance at arm’s length, especially since someone very close to the lion is at the root of all his troubles. But there is something irresistible about Vance, something that has Joey wanting more than he has ever dared to dream.
When their lives are threatened, Joey must choose whether to sacrifice himself, or try to live and keep Vance close…for the very short remainder of his life.
Publisher’s Note: This book has previously been released by Pride Publishing. It has been revised, expanded and re-edited for re-release.
REVIEW:
This is the first book in his particular series and I must say that it’s off to an odd start. The novella gives us the story of Joey, a cougar shifter on the run from a group of lion shifters who meets Vance while in the run. That’s it.
You don’t really know why Joey is on the run, why this group of lion is after him, what series of events led up to these lion shifter chasing this cougar shifter. You find out he works from home but you’re not told what he does, he find out that he’s been feeling ill but you’re given the sense that he’s just getting over the flu not suffering from a life-threatening disease—one he was actually dying from. Sure, there was an explanation but it wasn’t exactly clear. This novella reads like the middle part of a full novel, or you jumped or were thrown into in the middle of something, or like walked in on the tail end of a conversation and there was no explanation as to what you were thrown into the middle of.
It’s because of this, I can’t really give you any sense of how this novella reads. Oh, don’t get me wrong: the book wasn’t bad at all, just poorly constructed. It piqued my interest because they’re feline shifters which happen to be my favorite breed.
Any number of things could’ve contributed to this novella feeling rushed and unfinished; I just don’t know. Hopefully as the series progress, the author will develop the characters and storyline a bit more. The storyline has much potential. The characters are quite lovely and I hate to see these wonderful characters and the storyline fall by the wayside. The novella was okay but more time needed to be spent on the development of it.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS: