Hour of the Lion

Hour of the Lion by Cherise Sinclair

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I enjoy a good paranormal book.  I'm a bit jaded by the plethora of shifter books lately.  Some of the authors throw in a couple of wolves and recycle the common "understood" of how werewolves and shifters came to be.  I've read Ms. Sinclair's books before and generally found them to be well written with great characters that I like and a story line I can follow.  In addition, she creates conflicts which I can believe and follows each developed thread to a conclusion.  It may not be a happy conclusion, but it's a conclusion.



When I heard she moved to the paranormal genre with shifters, I was nervous.  Would it turn out okay?  Is she just jumping on the band wagon?  With great reluctance, I finally forced myself to read the book.  The first thing I can say after reading the first few pages is, "WHY ON EARTH DID I WAIT SO LONG?"



The first chapter BLEW me away.  We went from zero to sixty in less than a second.  I LOVE IT.  I was captivated from the very first moment when Vic was tied up and under threat of rape and torture.  This world Ms. Sinclair created for the shifters is fabulous.  She's used some of the existing accepted mythology and added her unique twist.  Her book leaves a wide open world for more than just shifters.  She has so many interesting characters I hope she writes several books and this becomes a series.



The erotic categorization of this book for me was the sensual and sexy heat between the three main characters, Vic, Calum and Alec.  The menage was a nice treat.  There was nothing out of this world about the sex, but it was nice each time.  Each sex scene had purpose to enhance the story.  It wasn't a gratuitous sex just for the sake of checking off a list of required sex scenes.



I liked Vic - she's the type of woman I admire.  Smart, loyal and strong cognitive skills and the ability to make a decision and stick to it.  She isn't w/o her flaws.  It's rather sad her flaws and I admit to shedding a tear at her heartache.  Alec and Calum, what can be said about them?  H.A.W.T, sexy, alpha and okay a bit paranoid.  But seriously, is it really paranoid if people are really out to get you?  I wouldn't mind being the meat in that man sandwich. 



The axillary characters were just as charming.  There was a reason for each person's madness.  There was no "just because" explanations.  Did people do bad things?  Yes.  Were they completely bad people?  No.  Each person's motivation was true to that character and help generate believable conflict.  This is what I admire about Ms. Sinclair's storytelling technique. 



I recommend this to all my friends, even those who don't really like paranormal, this is still a well written story.  I'd read it over and over and over and over again.  At this point, Ms. Sinclair should just be an auto-buy for me.