Audiobook review: The Phoenix Pack Series
Author: Suzanne Wright
Narrator: Jill Redfield
Audio Speed: 1.0x
Series: The Phoenix Pack series #4, #5
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Source: Publisher (#4), Purchased
Note: The narration for both titles is reviewed at the end of the story reviews.
Dark Instincts
Both Roni and Marcus are enforcers for their packs. Marcus is a big flirt and is known for his love of the ladies. Roni is a tough as nails tomboy.
Marcus has been circling around Roni for a while now but, Roni has done her best to keep him at arm’s length. She knows that she’s not Marcus’ usual type. She’s not the pretty, girly-girl he goes after.
Roni and Marcus had messed up passes with their families so even though they might be opposites but they are a great fit for each other. I enjoyed listening to their dance and grow into their HEA.
Dark Instincts starts out with Roni fighting off some Jackel shifters after a car wreck. The action part of the plot focuses around a group of shifters running a website that shows shifter snuff films. Roni has a past with this kind of thing after being attacked by a group and almost raped on film. She and her family are still dealing with the day in their past.
As both Roni’s and Marcus’ packs works together to find the bastards that are kidnapping shifters of all kinds and ages for the films there’s some bloody fight scenes. And one funny torture scene where the ladies of the pack torture a female Jackel for information.
My Rating: B
Savage Urges
Savage Urges focuses on Ryan and Makenna. She’s a loner wolf who volunteers full time at a loner shelter and he’s a pack enforcer. Makenna like most loners, do not trust pack life because they had a bad experience point one in their lives. Either they were abused by a pack member(s) leading to them running away or being kicked out. The shelter is home to many different species of shifters.
Makenna and Ryan meet when she is helping his younger cousin Zac find a home. Ryan and Zac have never met, but like any good shifter, Ryan is ready to take Zac in before they even meet. Zac needs time to get to know Ryan and the Phoenix Pack before agreeing to join the pack. Makenna accompies Zac to his early meeting with Ryan and the pack. There’s an instant attraction between Ryan and Makenna.
While a bond is forming between cousins and pack, there’s also one forming between Ryan and Makenna, one that Ryan knows is due to them being mates. Makenna isn’t as convinced as Ryan, at first.
While the Phoenix Pack is welcoming two new members to their pack, they are helping the loner shelter owner, Dawn, and the people who live and work there. They are being strong armed by another pack and their alpha. There’s a dark backstory for the alpha and there could be triggers for some readers. There’s talk about parent/child sexual abuse and the alpha likes little children. There’s not many details thankfully, but the subject is talked about.
While Savage Urges didn’t knock it out of the part for me, it was still an enjoyable listen, and I will continue the series.
Side note: There is a spinoff series to the Phoenix Pack entitled, the Mercury Pack. Book 1, Spiral of Need was released in the fall of 2015 following Dark Instincts I should have listened to it before Savage Urges only because the heroine shows up for a small part in Savage Urges. I’ll go back and listen to it before listening to the next Phoenix Pack book, Fierce Obsessions. So there may be a future series review for Mercury Pack. I’ve included the release order for reference, below.
My Rating: C+
Narration both titles:
Jill Redfield is the reason the Phoenix Pack series is an audio only series for me. Redfield is a great narrator. She can deliver both the female and male characters in an enjoyable way. I think I actually enjoy her male voices more than the female and that’s high praise coming from me. Not many female narrators can pull off the male voices so well and still make the female voices sound feminine.
Narration: A
Jennifer
About the Books:
Dark Instincts:
It happens whenever wolf shifter Roni Axton is near Marcus Fuller: a crackle of sexual awareness that’s intoxicating…and deeply annoying. Marcus is a pack enforcer who oozes power, but Roni is lethal in her own right—nothing like the flirty females who flock around him. Even still, his possessive gaze makes one thing clear. Marcus has singled her out for seduction, and he wants to make her sit up and beg.
No matter how aloof and unfazed Roni acts, Marcus can tell she wants him. When a brutal attack by a jackal pack forces them to work together, it’s the perfect opportunity for Marcus to chip away at her defenses—until he falls into his own trap, completely unprepared for the intensity of their connection. Roni is the only one who’s ever seen past his shifter charm and discovered the man hiding beneath it. And for Marcus, claiming Roni once will mean needing her forever.
Savage Urges:
She’s a lone wolf with a cause.
As a volunteer at a shelter for lone shifters—the same one that rescued her—Makenna Wray has dedicated her life to finding homes for its residents. And when she discovers that a teen in her care is related to Ryan Conner, the broody, handsome-as-sin enforcer of the Phoenix Pack, she’s eager to help connect the two. She just wasn’t prepared to feel a connection of her own.
Lone wolves are loners for a reason—and most of them bad. Or so Ryan assumes until he meets the mysterious Makenna. Quirky and sensual, she seems to enjoy riling him, especially when she refuses to discuss her past. Although there is no mating bond, he’s sure she’s the one. All he has to do is be patient and wait. But when another pack’s sinister Alpha comes sniffing around, threatening Makenna and her shelter, this enforcer is ready to let his wolf off the leash…
Phoenix Pack and Mercury Pack release (and assumed reading) order:
Feral Sins (PP)
Wicked Cravings (PP)
Carnal Secrets (PP)
Dark Instincts (PP)
Spiral of Need (MP)
Savage Urges (PP)
Force of Temptation (MP)
Lure of Oblivion (MP)
Wild Hunger (PP)
Echoes of Fire (MP)
Untamed Delights (PP)
Shards of Frost (PP)