Sunday, August 28, 2016

Review: Claiming His Witch by Ellis Leigh

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Title: Claiming His Witch
Series: Feral Breed Motorcycle Club
Author: Ellis Leigh
Read copy: eBook (Kindle)
Published: October 29, 2014
Publisher: Kinship Press
ASIN: B00P1SQU7S

A shifter fighting for his place in the Feral Breed
A witch searching for a place in her coven
A love that breaks every boundary

Only ten years into his new life as a wolf shifter, Feral Breed MC prospect Pup is struggling to find his place. A throwaway kid in his human past, the only time he's ever felt at home is when he's riding with his Breed brothers. But a mistake that nearly ended the life of his leader's mate haunts him, and he'll stop at nothing to prove his worth.

Orphaned at birth, Azurine and her sisters have been raised on string magick, grimoires, and the strength of the elements around them. Growing up surrounded by the witches in their coven, there's never been a lack of a maternal element to support her. But she's always been the "middle Weaver," forced to accept the coven's refusal to see the girls as anything other than the Weaver triplets.

When a witch hunter invades the coven's home, the witches lash out at the nearest suspect... and one of their own. Betrayed by her coven, Azurine must choose between the only family she's ever known and the man fate tied to her soul. And as Pup tries to earn the respect of his club, he makes a decision that could cost him more than his place in the Feral Breed. It could cost him Azurine. Or his own life.

My rating:

Pup's been feeling weird ever since he sat on his bike to go visit Beast (and maybe Rebel, who's still jackass—at least at the start of the story) up north. And even when they meet up as their camp, something keeps calling him northnorthnorthnorth...So he heeds the call, his wolf doesn't give him the opportunity to refuse, but before he could go truly northnorthnorthnorth, two girls crash into their camp.

Azurine, the middle triplet of the family, the water witch, has been preparing for winter with the coven, but something's been calling her southsouthsouthsouth all day. So when the oldest of the coven, Sarah, the woman who practically raised her and her sisters, tells her to heed the call, Azurine goes southsouthsouthsouth, with her sister Scarlett (a fire witch) to light the way.

She immediately knows she's found what she was looking for when she crashes into a camp and comes eye to eye with a green-eyed wolf...Who turns into a man...Who turns out to have her red thread curled around him. In layman's terms—he's her soul mate.

The only problem is, she's a witch and he's a shape-shifter. And those supposedly kill witches. So her coven will not look fondly on their union...She has no idea.


And now we have witches thrown into the mix. Which is good, since there was more plot to focus on beside the goddamned mating haze, but still not good enough to get the rating up. It was boring, demanding a faster reading pace as its predecessor, because the pacing toward the end was so damn slow.

I liked the heroine. She wasn't a shifter, but she wasn't human either, so the notion of (soul) mates wasn't foreign to her, and the girl had some serious powers. Good for her. I loved the scene at the camp when she defended her sister with that tidal wave. Cool.
I liked her hero as well. I've had a soft spot for Pup since the first book, and although I didn't particularly like his stubborn refusal to finish the job (mate or no mate) and determination never to make mistakes—mistakes are part of life, kid, deal with it, I liked the Pup I got to see with Azurine. Sure, he was a sex-crazed as the other shifters when he found his mate, but the fact he was a young shifter (barely ten years old) helped in their interactions. He didn't demand, he took to heart lessons learned from Rebel's botched claiming, and he followed her lead, which was nice.
Okay, the fact he was too stubborn to see reason about the mated-wolves-don't-ride thing has to be excused a little, because it led to my favorite scene in the book (it's there, at the end of the blurb), the gripping, intense, heart-wrenching scene that made me realize Ms Leigh can write something other than fuck-scenes. So why doesn't she?

Anyway, moving on.

Again, there was a pinch of suspense thrown into the mix, which was never expanded or explored beside the fight that led to the aforementioned wonderful scene. Again, a big pity, because there could've been something there. Expand the other elements of the story, keep most of the mating behind closed doors (we don't have to know everything, for crying out loud, let's leave the idiots be), and you have balance in the story.

Despite the better, expanded plot thanks to the witches, their coven, their inner politics, and sibling rivalries and betrayals, the balance still wasn't there in this one. But it's getting better. Hopefully in the next story (Beast!), we'll get there.
I love Beast, by the way. I only met him recently, so I don't know much about him, but the fact the guy had the best lines in the book (I loved his nicknames for Scarlett) says a lot.

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