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    Hot and Badgered
    Hot and Badgered
    Hot and Badgered
    Audiobook13 hours

    Hot and Badgered

    Written by Shelly Laurenston

    Narrated by Traci Odom

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    It's not every day that a beautiful naked woman falls out of the sky and lands face-first on grizzly shifter Berg Dunn's hotel balcony. Definitely they don't usually hop up and demand his best gun. Berg gives the lady a grizzly-sized t-shirt and his cell phone, too, just on style points. And then she's gone, taking his XXXL heart with her. By the time he figures out she's a honey badger shifter, it's too late.

    Honey badgers are survivors. Brutal, vicious, ill-tempered survivors. Or maybe Charlie Taylor-MacKilligan is just pissed that her useless father is trying to get them all killed again, and won't even tell her how. Protecting her little sisters has always been her job, and she's not about to let some pesky giant grizzly protection specialist with a network of every shifter in Manhattan get in her way. Wait. He's trying to help? Why would he want to do that? He's cute enough that she just might let him tag along-that is, if he can keep up . . .

    Contains mature themes.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMar 27, 2018
    ISBN9781541489769
    Hot and Badgered
    Author

    Shelly Laurenston

    Shelly Laurenston is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Pride, Call of Crows, and The Honey Badger Chronicles, as well as winner of the RT Book Reviews Readers' Choice Award for her 2016 novel, The Undoing. When she’s not writing about sexy wolf, honey badger, lion, and other fang-filled predators, she's writing about sexy dragons as G.A. Aiken, the acclaimed and bestselling author of the Dragon Kin series. Originally from Long Island, she now lives on the West Coast and spends most of her time writing and making sure her rescued pit bull doesn’t love everyone into a coma. Please visit her online at www.ShellyLaurenston.com. 

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    Reviews for Hot and Badgered

    4.5/5

    184 ratings12 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This was such a good book. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I honestly kept seeing it recommended and bypassing it. I'm glad I finally decided to read it. I love the 3 sisters, they are bars in the window crazy but so fun to read. I absolutely loved the dynamic, banter, fighting and loyalty. The beginning of the book sucked me in. These 3 sisters who would do anything for each other. I also loved the bears. The triplets added such a nice dynamic to the book. The love interest between Berg and Charlie just felt natural. It wasnt as in your face as must romances, the storyline definitely came first but that was a nice change. It was fated and your stuck with me whether you like it or not. It was an easy, they get to know each other by going along this crazy adventure and then falling for each other. My favorite part however was not the romance it was the sisters. I laughed out loud at several of there interactions and im excited to read more.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      This book was not at all what I expected it would be. I thought it was going to be a cute, funny book with comical shifters. But what I got was more serious. There was some levity but it wasn't the joking book I thought it was going to be. I did really enjoy reading it! I'm excited to read the next one!
    • 2/5
      This was an incredibly fun and silly story. Three honey badger sisters with one father in common who is a complete deadbeat loser that always seems to drop them into trouble. The book reads like the 3 or 4th book in the series and new people are constantly being added to the plot. The crazy is like a Stephanie Plum novel turned up way past 10. It was an entertaining audio but I don’t think the series is for me.
    • 5/5
      So much fun! Sisters! Funny. Over the top violence. Light on romance, but didn't mind. Lot's of loose threads for future books. The relationships between all the different McKilligans was confusing. Need a family tree.
    • 5/5
      Such an interesting plot. A bit difficult to keep up with all the characters, but worth a read.
    • 5/5
      This is another of Shelly Laurenston's humorous paranormal romances. Berg Dunn is a grizzly and a security specialist. Charlie Taylor-MacKilligan and a wolf-honey badger hybrid. They meet when Charlie, on the run from unknown assassins, lands naked and bloody on Berg's hotel balcony. She escapes with his best gun and one of his tee-shirts leaving him curious about what her situation was.Charlie has always been the protector for her two younger half-sisters. Max is all honey badger and a borderline sociopath kept from total mayhem by her love for her sisters. Stevie is the youngest and is a honey badger-Siberian tiger hybrid. She is also a certified genius who is subject to panic attacks. The three girls have banded together since childhood to protect themselves from their father who is immoral, inept and constantly doing things that are likely to get his daughters killed. For example, when she was much younger, he tried to sell Stevie to a Peruvian drug lord to cook up meth for him. Now it looks like he has tried to sell Stevie again and it is up to her sisters to save her.When they run into Berg again in New York City, he offers to help which is a unique situation for Charlie. No one has ever offered to help. Her MacKilligan family has more or less written them off unless they want to use them to get to their father. Right now they do because Freddy has stolen 100 million British Sterling from his brother and he wants it back. Also their aunt Bernice wants to hire them to make sure that her daughter's wedding to an all-human wealthy man goes ahead without a hitch. Berg's help lands the girls in a house smack in the middle of the bear section of New York City. Did I mention that Stevie is terrified of bears and tends to have more panic attacks around them? She can often be found hiding up a tree or in a kitchen cupboard. But Charlie's habit of baking when she is under stress quickly endears her to all their sweet loving neighbors. Lots of characters from earlier books in this series make appearances in this one too. From the lethal wolf Dee Ann Smith to the hockey-obsessed bear Bo Novikov to the Jean-Louis Parker family of jackals. There is a lot of humor in this story and a really nice romance too. My only complaint is that the problem with Freddy MacKilligan wasn't resolved by the end of the book. Of course, that does give lots of room for more books and maybe even romances for Charlie's younger sisters.
    • 5/5
      This book was SO FUNNY, well written, and entertaining. This author is a FIND. Pardon me as I go and read everything she’s now written.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 4/5
      So this book was chaotic and hilarious I really liked it
    • 5/5
      Hilarious. Hooked me from the first scene, and the characters are great. Fairly cavalier with the violence and the “you deserved that” but that is well in keeping with the nature of honey badgers, so it worked for me. Also, I adore that they love sleeping in cabinets and snake venom infused vodka. Fantastic!
    • 3/5
      I didn't win a copy of this book on the Goodreads giveaway, but I was intrigued enough by the synopsis to borrow the book from the library. I haven't read any other books by this author (Shelly Laurenston), although she apparently has written many romances set in this world. Some of the main characters from her other books have cameo/secondary roles in this book, but it worked for me as a stand-alone novel. I know other reviewers have complained about the chaotic mess of characters in this book, but since they each have unique roles, it wasn't hard for me to keep track of them.I found this book outrageously funny, with lol moments that left me in tears. The dialogue was very real to me, as in "this is how I and my friends talk," which was a rare delight for me. There was even an early scene in the book (Chapter 4) that had seven characters in one room all talking with each other, but I always knew who was "talking" because they each had a distinct voice.Sadly, by the halfway point in the book all distinctions melted away, and everyone's dialogue sounded the same. Even the accents fell away. Unless the author specified who was hissing or barking the lines, you couldn't really tell the voices apart. And that's another problem: always having the characters "hiss," "bark," and "growl" their lines made these descriptive words lose their meaning. What's wrong with just using the verb "say" and reserving the other verbs for times when it would have some impact? It's also problematic that the characters shout and yell so much; it gets a little tiring to read all the exclamation points and italics, and to always "hear" the dialogue in my head as shouting -- like reading texts in ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME. The action, like the dialogue, was non-stop high intensity. I enjoyed it, but some modulation would have made it better. The book reminds me of the movie Kill Bill in that sense. The romance was underdeveloped, which reminds me of YA novels where the boy and girl fall for each other for no reason at all. But I am grateful that the sex scenes were infrequent; I think the "shifter" element in those scenes made it hard for me to relate. For example [warning: this spoiler includes strong language, all quoted directly from the book]: ""Charlie gasped, his mouth on her nipples felt ... different. Weird. Not bad, though. More like outstanding. Yes. Outstanding. Like he had two mouths on one nipple."[...]Then his face disappeared and his mouth was on her pussy."Charlie gasped. She felt it again. Like there were two mouths on her rather than just one." (p. 320)Um, yeah. I guess that's the effect of the bear mouth, the bear lips, and the bear tongue of the male lead (Berg) who is a grizzly bear shifter. I'm guessing. But you can also see from this passage that 1) the reader is not supposed to identify with this sexual experience, and 2) the writing gets a little repetitive at times. There are some characterizations -- in particular, passages that explain the psyche of Charlie or Berg -- that come late in the book but that really should have been revealed sooner. For example:"They made the long hike to the front desk [of the hotel], taking it all in. But Charlie knew they focused on different things."For Stevie [the sister who is the music prodigy and science genius], it was about the people. The energy. Everything that surrounded them. She drew all that in and her brain organized and sifted until she had a story to tell through music or science. When they got home later, she'd jot notes into one of the precious notebooks she kept in her backpack for possible later use."For Max [the violent, psychopathic middle sister], it was about finding trouble. She searched out the drama, the weakness, the open doors. Although she didn't do much stealing -- that Charlie knew about -- she still had a thief's eye. Just like her birth mother. She could size up a jewelry store or one of those brand-name places with all the expensive purses that people sat on a waiting list for, and she could come up with several ways in and out with thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of merchandise."But for Charlie [the female romantic lead in this story], it was all about escape. Where were the exits? Who stood between her and her sisters and those exits? What could she use as a weapon? Were there cops nearby? Could she incapacitate and escape or would she have to take a life? These were the questions she asked herself every time she entered a building. To the point where she barely realized that's what she was doing. It was like breathing to her. Or finding water when she was thirsty."As always it was about protecting her sisters and herself." (pp. 268-269)These insights into the three sisters' characters come two-thirds of the way through the book, but it really should have been spelled out like this sooner. It would have helped build the romance between Charlie and Berg, but more important, it would have added more substance to the story early on.When the shifter characters are in their human form, most of them (especially the bears) are six to eight feet tall. It gets a little silly that way. And I don't understand why Berg thinks Charlie "fits him perfectly" when he is about a foot taller and wider than she is.Between the hilarious dialogue, the violent action scenes that cause severe-sounding injuries which everyone recovers from swiftly and without permanent damage (things like multiple gunshot wounds, a severed thumb, a face that gets slashed down to the bone), and the giant proportions of many of the characters, this fantasy world comes off a lot like a professional wrestling match. So as romance, this story is weak. As erotica, it's passable. As fantasy, there are too many inconsistencies in this world for it to really work. As action-adventure, it's good, if a bit lacking in rhythm. ~bint
    • 4/5
      I saw this book on Powell's IG and snapped it up immediately. Somehow I'd never heard of it, the series, or the author and it seemed right in line with my sense of humor. 4 for the idea. 2 for the execution. Settled on 3.5, cause nothing about it is average.The cover is quite the conversation starter and the author does have a very tongue-in-cheek sensibility to her writing. I mean, the idea of human/animal species shapeshifters and their family feuds and clan rivalvries, featuring some Honey Badger sisters is amazing. BUT.To me, this book was the equivalent of being constantly over-stimulated. Like a painting that has so much color and pattern without grounding that you feel like you might get a seizure from looking at it. Or, like access to a never-ending buffet of sweets that you over-indulge in and then just want a salad. Or trance music. Or the world's longest tickle fight.This book is like one running madcap joke, with hijinx and hilarity continuously ensuing. For 400 pages. There's no rest to ground you and after awhile, it's tiresome and exhausting to keep going. I wanted to love it. Heck, I want everyone to love it because it's a fun idea and I want risky book ideas rewarded.But, it's also too much of a good thing and I'm not hungry for more like it.
    • 3/5
      Hot and Badgered by Shelly LaurenstonThe Honey Badgers #1I loved the first chapter of this book and thought that it had so much potential. I even liked the first part of chapter two where Berg meets Charlie but from that point on the story, to me, became rather chaotic. There were so many names that even writing them down to keep track didn’t help much and there were so many things taking place it felt like everything but the kitchen sink had been thrown in. The sisters seemed so close in chapter one and also very together for children but they did not carry that through as adults. So, the story is about three “sisters” with honey badger blood. They are not all from the same mother and father but are raised together. We are introduced to them when they show up on their grandfather’s doorstep at ages 8, 11 and 12 and then we don’t see them again till they are full grown and in action mode. There is someone out to get them, people to thwart, fights at the drop of a hat, mental institutions, panic attacks, personal attacks, a bit of romance, shapeshifting, heists, robbing, family unknown unearthed, chases, killing, maiming and more. I think the main thing is that I just could not relate to many if any of the characters.I think this is a series that is not my cup of tea but I would like to thank NetGalley and Kensington Books for the ARC – This is my honest review. 2-3 Stars