Thunderstruck

The Thunderbird Brotherhood #1

by Wren Michaels

Reseda Juarez is dead. Though she functions as a human, inside she's an emotionless weapon, trapped between the living and the undead. Cold and unrelenting, she's used as a super-soldier by the government in a special task force to hunt preternatural beings to the brink of extinction.

One night, five years ago, Kane killed an innocent and his brother lost the love of his life. The aftermath forces Kane to become the alpha of the legendary Thunderbirds. He now must protect what's left of his family from the tribe of wolf shifters who ripped them apart.

When Reseda's mother is bitten by a wolf, she and Kane are forced to work together to find the Mayan Pul Yah stone to heal her—the same stone that gifted Reseda to the life she now lives. But the journey is riddled with more than wolves, also searching for the stone. Something strange happens to their powers when they're together, and they struggle to fight the intense attraction between them. The deeper they go, the more secrets unravel, until love is the only thing that can defeat an enemy no one saw coming.

Genres: Romance

ebook

Published March 10, 2022

About the author

Wren Michaels hails from the frozen tundra of Wisconsin where beer and cheese are their own food groups. But then a cowboy swept her off her feet and carried her away to Texas where she promptly lost all tolerance for snow and cold. They decided they’d make beautiful babies together and they got it right on the first try. Now Wren lives happily ever after in the real world and in the worlds of her making, where she creates book boyfriends for the masses to crave.

Reviews

[InD'tale Magazine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rating: 4.5/5.0

What a marvelous paranormal romance! A magnificent tale!

Read full review in the 2022 May issue of InD'tale Magazine.

[Kat Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a satisfying read! I was in the mood for a twisty, angsty, high-stakes paranormal romance, and Thunderstruck delivered and then some. This story is the perfect blend of action, intrigue, sexiness, and humor, featuring two leads who are brought together by extraordinary circumstances that they must overcome even when an inconvenient attraction erupts in their path. Kane is the perfect hero for such a tale, stern and strong yet still warm, and Reseda is tough but soft under a protective exterior. The worldbuilding is fascinating and sure to enthrall in its own right while providing an unforgettable backdrop to the steamy romance. Highly recommended to anyone looking for a hot paranormal adventure that's on the edgier, darker side.
Thank you to the author and publisher for an ARC in exchange for a review!

[Leslie O'Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review coming soon.

[Bookloversofantastic · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️,5 /5
I have to say that this story was a real surprise and I really enjoyed it. Everything was so different from what I’m used to.

Reseda is dead, she doesn’t feel anything, she cannot die and was trained as a weapon in order to wipe out preternatural such as wolfs who killed her father and took her mother. When she heard that her mother escaped, she crosses the path of Kane !
Well, Kane is a Native American, build like a mountain and covered in tattoos 🔥. As the Alpha of his people, he has to protect them from the war against the wolf, with his two brothers Nodin and Tag.
Reseda and Kane need to go through a journey to retrieve a « magic stone » and cure Reseda’s mother without knowing all the turmoil that they will have to face.

I’m clearly excited to know what’s gonna happen next; alongside Reseda, there are two other Dolls Dahlia and Teagan - and Teagan’s brother Drake who is the commander of the Dolls and who holds an influence on them - he’s a really scary one, you don’t want to cross path with him, even if he’s only human.
However, I just love Dominic, the Wolf Alpha’s son and I hope we will have the possibility to see more of him and his story 😉.

[Christinaraven · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this story that mixes an Indian Nation Thunderbird clan, a wolf clan, and a secret super solder together to get an interesting story and series start. Mixes action, danger, mystery, suspense, secrets and interesting characters on a quest to recover a artifact hidden on the Reservation. Of course that part was easy and the rest of the story then plays out as the two main leads fall for each other in between all the action and danger. It was fun and these two were a riot together as they uncover things as they try to overcome their sad pasts. Just a good read and interesting that I want to see what happens next..

[J.E. McDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

THUNDERSTRUCK is a page-turning adventure filled with spirit and heart. Michaels creates a sexy paranormal world where readers are taken on an action-packed journey of the heart, and wolf shifters and thunderbirds are enemies. Kane is both stern and sexy, and Reseda is a deadly, reprogrammed soldier learning to accept new and strange emotions. Thrilling scenes are mixed with tender moments and readers will be taken on an unforgettable journey.

[Cody Marie Phoenix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very unusual to see First Nations in Paranormal writing and Thunderbirds on top of that was a real treat! Some great characters involved including a very feisty heroine and a brooding Alpha male. Along with romance in the book, it was loaded with drama, mystery and good ole humor and sarcasm. I would definitely recommend and I look forward to Tag's story in book 2.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout in exchange for an honest review.

[Judy Gittleson Hendrickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kane and Reseda undertake an adventure which includes the First Nation, thunderbirds, wolves, high emotions, intrigue, surprises, twists, growing steam and much more. The characters have depth, insight, strength and support. Loved the roller coaster ride between the building tension and the sweeter situations. So much going on and exciting to read. Can not wait for the next book. Well done.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout in exchange for an honest review.

[Shakera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 3.75/4
There hasn’t been a book from Wren Michaels that I didn’t absolutely love, but this one started a little rough for me. I think sometimes, when creating strong, badass heroines, authors confuse badass or strong with bitchy. That’s not to say Reseda didn’t have moments of being an absolute badass, but for me, her first interactions with Kane and his family was a bit bitchy.

What I did enjoy was finding out why she was this way. The truth behind everything, right down to how Kane and Reseda know each other was filled with angst and intrigue. There was humor and steaminess to go along with the emotional rollercoaster this book takes you on. I also enjoyed reading a story with an Indigenous man and a Guatemalan woman in the lead. (One of my favorite parts involves Kane checking Reseda about his culture.) I would have been interested in learning more about the Pul Yah stone and how it works. Maybe more about the stone will be in the upcoming books.

The book could have done with a little editing. There was missing punctuation and the wrong pronoun being used; however, this didn’t detract from the story for me. I’m still a fan, and I’m excited for what’s to come with this series.

[Tiffany · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a little hesitant with this book at first because I usually do not choose shapeshifting type of books but this book has changed my mind! This book was fantastic and I can not wait for the next in the series. Reseda is a total bad a$$, full of whit and sarcasm. The banter in this book is so funny. Great job Wren for getting me hooked in another series lol.

[Trinity McGregor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, the first in a new series from Wren Michaels. It's well written, with an exciting plot and multidimensional characters. Ms. Michael's poetic prose fit nicely with the tone, capturing the spiritual side of nature... Both the world's nature, and the characters' natures. I can't wait for more in this series!

Received as an ARC.

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really lovely book! I enjoyed Reseda's personality very much, though I would have liked the Stone/it's abilities/what it did to her explained a little better. It would have helped overall with the book. I loved Kane as well and the way he handled her was perfect. Together they were hilarious, the banter was well done. I imagine there will be more stories involving his brothers, and I can't wait.

[Sissy Satterfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to say that the book had me at Thunderbirds, I really love reading about them! I really love this story and the characters were easy to relate to. The Story was one great adventure and I will be putting this on my reread list! Loved It!!!. I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout in exchange for an honest review.

[Sonja Worrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome read

I love this book and look forward to the rest of the series. Wren Michaels has done it again. Very much recommend.

[Deirdre · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slow start

[Tanya · Rating 5 out of 5]

She feels dead inside and she is used as a killer by the government. He accidentally killed an innocent and his brother lost the love of their lives. Circumstances will bring these two together as they hunt for a mystic stone. How will they get on? Will a love form? Can they get the stone before anyone else? See if they get the stone. I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout in exchange for an honest review.

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exciting read with mystery. Characters were great and the storyline was very well written. This book had lots to offer and kept me hooked. The chembetween them was delightful

[Nancy Foster · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got a free ARC from the author. Thanks!

I specifically chose to read this book because our MCs are lauded as a diverse couple to add a bit of variety in the already hypercompetitive Paranormal Urban Fantasy/Romance genre. The female Reseda is a mixed race Guatemalan colloquially known in Guatemala as a Ladino and the male MC Kane a Southwestern Canadian First Nation indian (I am unsure if the tribe mentioned in the book exists or it is fantasy, I have never heard of it before).

The plot is... well.. I think if it had been polished more with a few more rounds of editing, it would have been very good. I spent half of it feeling flustered and spent the vast majority of my time wondering why Reseda continuously brags to herself she has lost contact with her emotions ever since she became cursed, but then she spends 99% of the story feeling either angsty, irritable, pissed off and/or feisty. Either she is trying to pull off a Scott Pilgrim where she behaves like an unreliable narrator on purpose, or something just doesn't add up. I believe the book mentions she is in her early 20's, but she acts so hormonal and makes so many rash (bad) decisions without thinking about the consequences that she seemed more like a 15 year old.

Kane is... umm... Didn't like him, didn't hate him. I felt ambivalent which is probably not a good sign in a romance novel. When you find one character to be grating and inconsistent and the official sanctioned lover is as meh as a lamp shade, that will be asking for a lot of trouble. I cannot really say whether the steamy sex scenes were good, I was just so indifferent about the book by then that I was much more invested in seeing which Spanish language phrase Reseda would say next because the general story just didn't draw me in at all. BTW, some of the Spanish phrases are missing commas and tilde accents. Spanish tends to like using Oxford commas a lot.

I am rather well travelled in Guatemala. Great country, nice people, horrible bus service. Outside of the Pacific coast and Petén, I have been pretty much everywhere else to a variable degree. When Reseda says a soft curse word, I instantly made a nod and pinpointed she is probably from the Jutiapa area because that is a Salvadorean slang phrase that isn't used nationwide. Perhaps this was unintentional, but when Reseda mentions she grew up in a highland village near the Motagua River, I am placing my bets she lived in the deep southeast of the river (once again, the Jutiapa area, and I'd even place higher bets it was very close to Esquipulas which is a rather interesting town to visit for those interested in seeing unusual Catholic artifacts). I don't believe she grew up in the Baja Verapaz northern ridge of the river. Why? For starters, because she would have spoken to her mom in Quiché instead of Spanish. Southern Guatemala has a very high incidence of Ladinos and their speech and culture is a lot more similar in my biased opinion to rural central Mexico than the Maya highlands of Guatemala. Certainly the southernmost towns in Baja Verapaz don't typically wear Mayan dresses like in Alta Verapaz and to the Atitlan Lake area to the West, but Quiché is widely spoken in the home in that specific region. Many highlanders are multilingual and it is common to see someone speak two Mayan languages with variable degrees of fluency along with intermediate Spanish to communicate with Ladinos and foreigners. I feel increasingly this is Reseda's case also because due to having mixed caucasian ancestry, she would have stuck out like a sore thumb in the highlands. Her personality is definitely not even remotely similar to a woman from the highlands. I find her brashness to be the complete polar opposite of highlanders. One cannot generalize because every person is different but highlander women tend to be so meek towards outsiders that I couldn't even ask them for directions. I had to always ask her accompanying male chaperone. Women from Panajachel tend to be a lot more westernized due to tourism, but I saw this behavior in most of the other highland villages. The highland region of Guatemala is very, very socially conservative, even for Latin American cultural standards). So in a nutshell, I am assuming this character buildup of Reseda was a coincidence, but if it was done on purpose, I will give a small kudos. The deep south of Guatemala is never visited by foreign tourists (everyone goes straight to Lake Atitlán and Tikal), but well worth it. There is a train museum, catholic tourism, the Zacapa rum tour and... Dinosaur fossils! Just be warned bus service in that area is so... soo awfully incoherent and nonsensical. You need to be a Zen master not to go nuts. It might be the accidental reason why Reseda has never visited Monterrico even though it is just a 2 1/2 hour drive by car from Jutiapa.

Now, as much as I will commend these minor nods of Guatemalan research, that still does not save Reseda's cloying personality. Maybe I could be ok with her being sassy once she moved to liberal Vancouver, but the book doesn't really spend any effort delving into this personal clash of culture shock that deeply affects expat kids from very different social backgrounds. Reseda doesn't stumble when switching between languages (Maybe she moved to Canada when she was very young?). Reseda is so hyperemotional but doesn't feel discomfort working part time as a stripper? She doesn't sometimes feel "left out" during conversations filled with Canadian cultural idioms? Doesn't show signs of practicing catholicism in her free time even though she comes from a rural area of a deeply conservative catholic majority country? Sure, there are Evangelist protestants in Guatemala, but it seems quite out of character. Even worse, when she has her super bombastic happy family reunion... she is... flat like a pancake. She shows no emotion with a complete lack of regard to seeing a family member she was so eager to see for ages. This behavior just seemed so out of character for a Latin American that grew up with loving parents. This could have been used as an interesting plot point to emphatize the curse. A huge waste of easy and good character tension.

Now the villain is... Well... I think a Stormtrooper has more malice. I won't spoil who the secret bad guy is but there is like no real sense of danger in the story. I felt more like half of the plot is Reseda's anger issues being angry for petty problems and the bad guy was just sort of written in haste. If you remove the villain and had a strip club client become the big bad guy, the plot would not have really suffered.

I think the only character that was memorable was Dominic. I would have liked him to be the MC. We'd still get the shapeshifting action, mixed pairing, a bad guy and romance. Oh, and he and his love interest (I won't spoil who) aren't toxic posessive people, which is the icing on the cake.

Maybe if the book had been rewritten with Dominic as the MC, I would have enjoyed it a lot more. But I don't know, when you feel very ambivalent with a MC because they do and behave without staying true to the character they claim to be, you feel pulled away like I did. Seems like most reviewers enjoyed this book, so take this review as more of an issue of "not my cup of tea" and maybe you will like it a lot.

[Marcia - itsabookthing2021 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley and publishers for this eARC of Thunderstruck

I thought this novel was really good, the main character Reseda is as kick ass as they come. Though she's not human, not living nor is she a vampire, her being is certainly intriguing and the change in her makes it more so.
This story sees the dolls fighting against the werewolves in order to save humanity, as well as having their own other agendas as well as a treacherous doll.
Reseda and Kane make a sizzling pair and you can tell from the off set there's chemistry there. I liked the whole mate under-story too.
I didn't like the character Drake, he came across as a narcissist, who believed the dolls belonged to him, using words to mind control them. - he was definitely well written for that part.
The style of writing is great, each chapter focuses on the view point from each character. The pacing is good and the storyline pans out well. The ending leaves you wondering what is coming next.
The paranormal with action, romance and humour edges on the darker side which is great!

[Douglas Williamson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our hero and heroine may come from different cultures, but they share more then they differ. And while fate has thrown them together, it is there combined passions that are going to save them.

This is book one of the series, so a fine place to start.

This is an intriguing urban fantasy story with several unusual elements to it. It has a Central American/Native American background and setting which sets it apart immediately and really peaked my interest. The character are well written with plenty of mystery and depth to them. I really enjoyed the glimpse that we got in this story and hope to delve more into their background in future books. The story itself has plenty of action, mystery and intrigue to keep the reader engaged while watching our characters gradually built a solid partnership. Overall, I really enjoyed this story and I look forward to more in this series.

Highly recommended.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout for review purposes.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first book in the Thunderbird Brotherhood series. Reseda Juarez and Kane the alpha of the legendary Thunderbirds. There is suspense, first nations, wolf clans, secret super soldiers, drama, danger, villains and romance. I want to read more in this series. I received a copy of this book via Booksprout in exchange for an honest review.

[Kathie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars I loved the main characters, the pace, and the dynamics involved in this engaging story. BUT, what I really enjoyed was the banter between Reseda and Kane! I'll definitely read the next in the series.

[Heather McCorkle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this unique paranormal romance about a thunderbird shifter and the genetically modified super soldier woman he falls for. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a unique shifter story.

[Wren Michaels]

[Dee · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF - I tried I really tried.