Earth is dying, humanity borders on extinction. Our plight seems hopeless — until they come for us.
The males of Ximera are in danger of being lost forever if they cannot replace the women the plague stole from them. One by one, each Ximeran is paired with a human female.
Not all the women of Earth are fully human, however. Myself included. And when my transport is hijacked, I’m forced to show my true form to protect myself.
Despite finding me amongst the shredded remains of my captors, my mate seems delighted by the tiger inside of me. But I fear the reality of being mated to a shifter may be more than he can stomach.
And in the shadows, another threat lurks, waiting to strike again. If I cannot convince Rakon to accept my claiming bite, if he refuses to stand with me against this evil, both our species risk losing everything.
Minette is the alter-ego of USA Today bestselling author Raisa Greywood, and writes all the things that go bump in the night. Shapeshifters, aliens, vampires, and especially dragons all find their way into her stories.
Minette Moreau is well on her way to become one of my favorite authors in the shifter department. Her Wicked Magic series was delicious,and now she’s discovered a new world,filled with shifters,humans,ximerans and other species. And those shifters kick ass,i can tell you….not only are they strong and smart,they’re loyal and love to bite the ones they love!
Renata knows her days on Earth are numbered,so she agrees to go to the Exodus Authority to find a match for her on Ximera. When she sees who they matched her with,Warlord Rakon of Ximera 8,she likes what she sees. A strong,very handsome male,one that she could see herself become very happy with. Her tiger doesn’t agree,but she knows that once they meet,once she smells his scent,her tiger will change her mind…..right? Only,something goes horribly wrong and she finds herself not on her way to meet her inteded mate,but en route to an unknown,and very bad,destiny! Being tortured to reveal her tiger by a pale alien that looked to be Ximeran…. Once her tiger was ready to take over,the aliens aboard the ship were very sorry they took her,though. If only the Ximeran didn’t manage to escape when her mate finally arrived….
Rakon was looking forward to meeting his match. Renata looked beautiful,though a little underfed,and he couldn’t wait to get to know her. If only Counselor Harkon didn’t send him on a mission,instead of allowing him to go home to meet with her. By the time he’s finally done,she isn’t where she should be,and the first thing he does,is go after her. When he finally finds the ship she’s on,he finds a beautiful Siberian tiger and a lot of dead aliens that look to be Krinion,Mendaran and even Ximeran. That Siberian tiger turns out to be his mate Renata,and once he gets her to shift,he finds out what happened.
Once Renata’s injuries are treated,they contact Ximeran Council and after a heated discussion,they have the support of the First Counsil,Fendar,to take action against the ones responsible. Plus,they’re starting a search to find other shifters…. Who can they trust,and who were the Ximerans that worked with the enemy,that’s the question…. And will Rakon be able to deal with the consequences of mating with Renata? Because there áre consequences…..
This was the introduction of a wonderful new world,with véry interesting characters! It was a story i enjoyed…a lot! Renata was a kick-ass heroine with a wonderful tiger,and i loved both sides of her! Rakon was a fearsome warlord that could accept a “scolding” and i love who he turned out to be after he mated with Renata.
I can’t wait to hear more of this world,and meet more of it’s residents,that’s for sure!
Do you ever wonder if authors watch movies with far out premises, like, oh, Snakes on a Plane, and then think, “Hold my bourbon, I’m going in,” cause that’s pretty much how I think Minette Moreau approached Tiger’s Gambit and it is fantastic. I loved Renata’s tiger—especially on the transport ship. The way her tiger…yeah…so good. And the way Rakon, instead of being horrified or worried about his mate, was just delighted. I mean, warlord, so it would make sense. I guess. Everything about this story ticked off all the boxes for what I enjoy in a great read. There are so many things I want to say about this story, but I don’t want to give anything away. The smexy scenes are so damn good. The way they interact with their tigers and how everyone is terrified of them (laughs gleefully). And the humor! I’ve said this before, this author and in all her incarnations, is a trope tipper—that’s like a cow tipper but with less shi—and she takes tropes, flips them around and turns them into absolute page turners. I am so excited for this series and can’t wait to see what comes next.
I thought this was a great read and an excellent start to this intriguing new series. I really liked the twist that this story had. I thought this book read very easily and the storyline maintained my interest right until I turned that last page. The characters were likable and the chemistry sultry. A skillfully constructed and sinfully seductive combination of drama, emotions, action, tension, danger, twists, adventure and heat was absolutely scrumptious, and it left me craving more of this series. This is my elective, candid review.
Wow this Romance book has Aliens and it has Shifters what a combination! I love Shifters and I love Aliens 👽 and wow the combination is is something I really love ❤️ The h is a Shifter and the H is an Alien and I love both characters. There is 🔥 and there is action. I want more of this series!
This book was really terrible. It's sad, because it had potential. It ended up being an insta-love, insta-lust book. The story turned out to be very thin, just enough to space out the sex scenes a little. I'm not a prude and I enjoy a good sex scene ... when it flows and adds to the story. This book has pages and pages of sex scenes that completely interrupt the flow. There is very little world building or character development. There were editing errors, too. I'm glad I got this book for free. I won't be reading any more by this author.
Spoiler alert on the rest of my review.
The male protagonist is the commander of a ship but spends most of his time having sex. He appeared to have no duties. The female protagonist is tortured. Practically the first thing her mate does is spank her. Seriously? I'm pretty sure someone who's been abused wouldn't be turned on. She's asked to be on the ruling council within hours of her arriving on their planet. In fact, it might have even been before she got there. I didn't care enough to go back to look at the timing. The story ends before anything is resolved. It's not quite a cliffhanger but clearly the author is suckering you in to buy the next book. I could go on but it's not worth the effort.
A new series by this author, I felt as if there was a lot of world building with this book, which is necessary, but sometimes made me wonder if this or that was ever going to be explained. Once the hero and heroine finally got together I thought the story improved and was a great combination of character driven and situational storytelling. Love, love, love that the heroine is the shifter and more than able to defend herself. I'm very interested in the other missing humans and to see what their stories entailed.
I received a free copy of this book from the author and am voluntarily leaving this honest and unbiased review.
Ramon and Renata’s story was enchanting, had such amazing characters and world building, not to mention the sizzling chemistry. I’ve read a lot of shifter romances but this one was so unique in a few different ways. I love that. More often than not when you read a certain genre/sub genre it always ends up being along the same lines. I adore that this was fresh and had its own spin. I cannot wait to see what happens next with this series/world.
This author is new to me, and as such, I was cautiously optimistic due to the rave reviews that came with this book suggestion in a fb group I’m in. I was not disappointed. From the world building (top notch) to the character development to the plot, I was thoroughly impressed by the talent of this author. Earth is dying. What few humans are left are suffering from starvation and exposure to the harsh elements that have taken over the entire planet. Ximera is a lush planet with resources to spare, but disease has nearly completely decimated the female population. Because of an ancient common ancestor, Ximerans and humans are able to breed, so a deal is struck in order to save what little of humanity as is possible. Human females submit their DNA to find a Ximeran mate, only some humans are a little….more… than Ximerans bargained for. The FMC, Renata, is used to fending for herself and doing it completely alone now that her one and only friend has gone to ground (☠️). Renata promised her friend she would submit her DNA to save herself, and is matched with Warlord Rakon. She thinks she has boarded a transport to take her to her mate, but in reality she has been kidnapped by a ghost. Of course, greed comes into play regarding these special humans, and there you have the plot for a thoroughly enjoyable, well-written story. The author does a wonderful job of writing the shifters as strong women who can and do take care of business violently and efficiently without any of those silly human hang ups about murder being wrong. Their animal nature shines through in the most amusing of ways (pro tip: don’t tell a tigress you’re going to kill her and take her mate. It won’t end well for you…) I absolutely enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the rest of this series and any other books by this author. Highly recommend!
Siberian Tiger shifter Renata, is kidnapped on her way to meet her mate Warlord Rakon. During the course of this her captors don't realize her power and strength, then she shifts and totally annihilates everyone on the ship, except for the villain in charge who escapes minus one of his legs.
I love that Rakon is proud, amazed, and impressed with her strength and revenge carnage. This might be a trigger for some- it gets quite descriptively gruesome. I guess in the past the Ximeran female mates were very alpha, honored, and praised. This is a unique look at shifters and super strong alien mates. So good.
The only thing I wish I'd waited until the author had written more of this series, because it's so good when I finished it I wanted to immediately jump into the next book and find out what happens next, but it isn't written yet! Yikes! I totally recommend this book.
I didn't want to put this one down. I resented that my children and pup thought they needed my attention, so I stayed up all night just so I could finish it without being interrupted. It was worth the exhaustion. The story is action-packed and super sexy. There is a character twist that I found exciting in its originality. I loved the heat level and the chemistry between Rakon and Renata. I loved the action, suspense, passion, and the HEA and I look forward to reading the rest of the books in the series.
This story is so awesome and i can not wait for what comes next although part of a series this is a standalone with a HEA. Great chemistry between the characters and some steamy action. i can not wait for what's next in this great series
OMG this is definitely one book I didn't want to put down. This story is so original full of action and kick-ass heroines that managed to save themselves. And did I also say it is so sexy. I loved the chemistry and heat between Rakon and Renata. I can't wait until we get the leopard's and jaguar's books. These women are going to lead the Ximeran on a merry chase. lf you want a book filled with action, suspense, passion, and a nice HEA you have to grab this book. I can't wait to read the rest of the series.
I really enjoyed this story, didn't want to put it down. It's a unique story, with some interesting twists. Plenty of action, emotion, and chemistry between Rakon and Renata. Pretty much everything you could want in a book in this genre. I am definitely looking forward to the rest of the series.
I love shifters and this one is so unique and different. There's so much danger, protecting, and very intense scenes. Written to keep your attention and never a dull moment as the fight for survival rules all.
It's really 3.5 stars. I liked the plot but too much was condensed. I didn't see enough interactions between characters (especially the secondary ones) to understand the bonds formed between them.
Ximerans lost their females and now need mates. Renata has been abducted as she was being transported. There's the evil Norkad who beats Renata but she shifts into her tiger and fights him off and bites off one of his legs,YES! Rakon turns out to be Renata's mate and absolutely loves Renata's tiger. I enjoyed the fact that Rakon wanted Renata's mating bite and everything about her suits him just fine. They have a sizzling hot connection, sexy times are exciting and dangerous at times, I loved Renata and Rakon together. I am looking forward to more of the Shifters' Mates to come.
There were things I liked about this book and some things I didn’t enjoy. I enjoyed the characters and their interactions, they made me laugh. I loved that both the human and tiger showed up in the book and let their voice be heard.
I did feel like I was dropped in the middle of a story and I was missing some more background about the planets and history and worldbuilding and I felt the ending was a bit rushed.
I was given an ARC of book two, 'Leopard's Surrender' by Minette Moreau, who was a new author to me, and became completely enthralled, entranced, and intrigued by it that I had to buy book one, 'Tiger's Gambit'. There was no way I could have missed this once I was introduced to Ms. Moreau's writing style, her world-building, or her characters. The storyline itself is intriguing. Earth is dying and with a trickle-down effect, so are its inhabitants. Because of treachery on the planet Ximera, most of their females were killed leaving their race faced with extinction if the males couldn't find suitable female mates. That's where the females on Earth come into play. But the treachery on Ximera is like the Hydra. Cutting off only one head only leads to more and it's still out there. A dying planet, two races facing extinction, aliens, shifters of all breeds, and a chemistry between a Hero and heroine that will have you reading with one hand or gulping your iced drink. This is a wonderful read.
This was my first book by this author and I’m excited to read more of her work. Renata and Rakon were both interesting characters. They had deep beliefs about right and wrong and were willing and able to do something about it if people were being wronged (or about to be wronged!). First was a pleasant surprise. While this story was a standalone it is the first of several books that are interconnected. I liked how the story ended. I understand why there wasn’t an epilogue however I still wanted more! I’m looking forward to the next book in the series. I recommend reading this book.
This book was fine, but it completely skips over Rakon and Renata getting to know each other.
Renata gets kicked out of the place she’s been living in with another shifter, so she goes to get tested to see if she has a genetic mate. It’s confirmed that she has a mate, and she goes to be transported, but ends up being kidnapped instead. She quickly deals with the kidnappers herself (which I really liked), and that’s when Rakon turns up to take her to Ximera. It turns out that the bad guys all know about shifters, and there’s a sort of prophecy/message about Renata and the other shifters.
All the details about the shifters seemed like they were added on and weren’t really thought out. I definitely don’t care enough about them to continue with the series.
I don’t like multiple page descriptions of settings and characters, but it felt like there were no descriptions in this book at all which made it hard to imagine what was happening.
I really liked how Rakon and Renata meet, especially how it’s obvious that Renata is dangerous and Rakon is respecting that, but it felt like their relationship development skipped getting to know each other and jumped straight to getting comfortable in their relationship.
Rakon’s reaction to the mate bite was over the top, especially how less than a day after storming away, he’s fine with it and can’t wait to get it.
There weren’t any developed side characters, which was a shame as Fengar seemed like he could have been a good one.
The main thing that I liked about this book was how obvious it was that Renata knew what she was doing and could protect herself. I really want to find more books with characters like her and Rakon where he respects her abilities and assists her.
I’m not going to continue with this series and this book isn’t encouraging me to try any other books by this author.
I’m kinda on the fence about this book. While being well written it’s more like an alien meets alien series. Humans are seen as nothing but breeding stock (if they are women) by the space aliens and as nothing but food by the aliens among the humans. That being the shifters. If a bite can change any species into a shifter, same as a vampire in the fact it is a complete change, then they, themselves are a species to themselves, and not human.
Then we have the space aliens only saving the female humans because they can be bred by their men, no clue what type of hybrid the children will be. But if it is a shifter they don’t care what gender the person is. It’s send out every available soldier to scour the dying planet to save them.
Meanwhile we have an overpowered woman, with no personal growth and her mate who, despite being a warlord is a pushover, and a lord of the species who is more like a grandfather to her. Everyone caters to her. So yeah… not a series for me.
This was both weird and wonderful. I loved the pairing of aliens X shifters - and the role reversal of the heroine being the big bad, not the alien.
I enjoyed the lore surrounding the shifters (Panteris etc) and their history was great to read too.
A few weird things I noticed: - The shifters are spread across the globe and yet most of them are found in the US, with no explanation for why that is. But then at the end we learn of more shifters still living in Africa, which contradicted the previous insight of moving to the States. - The pacing was a bit off at times. Certain scenes were sped up (Soledad's appearance was a blink and you'll miss it moment) versus others that crept along. - I didn't really enjoy the sex scenes. They lacked intimacy, in my view, so I skimmed through them. - Renata was a badass but her character was a little flat at times. I thought she would develop more as the story went along but nah. The only change was her suddenly becoming this bossy Panteris towards the other female shifters, which felt like an abrupt shift (pun intended).
Interesting enough, but the end was a little bit of a letdown.
So in a dystopian world where earth is dying, plants and animals are nonexistent, and humans are dying out, aliens have come to bargain for women. They submit blood and get a genetic match and there you go, mates.
So Renata isn’t just a human woman, she’s a tiger shifter who gets mated to an alien warlord, who will also turn into a tiger shifter after they mate when she bites him.
So yeah, a lot of sci-fi, supernatural stuff mixed up in this one. I mean the story was easy enough to follow, and I like Renata and Rakon. And they’re relationship was easy and nice. The fact that you can see all these other books set up may be intriguing to some.
But I didn’t love it enough to want to continue. And the end disappointed me. No babies! I mean an epilogue with babies would’ve been nice. So not bad, but just not quite for me.
This is a strong 4+ stars for one of the best shifter concepts I've read. Balancing the Mars-needs-women with a post-apocalyptic Earth, some space opera elements and both treachery and evil aliens. Toss in a female-driven shifter, where her animal drives the fated-mate trope, and you've got a pretty unique storyline. This is further developed with other shifter species added to create a nice universe and a basis for future stories.
The adventure and sexy bits are quite good, though the author suffers from some repetitive descriptions and other editing issues. But the snark was excellent, especially where our tigress was describing which aliens taste better as she's dismembering them.
Wow! This is a new author that I found with Bookbub and I must admit I was somewhat skeptical. I started reading this story that I got free and was sucked into the void. MS Moreau has created a wonderful (it seems to be a bit bloody at times) that I now fully appreciate her path. Predators are just that. Brutal and she says Find, Feed, Fuck sums it all up. When paired with their respective mates, it takes that to a new level (not surprising that the male mate is slow to comprehend the mating bond). MS Moreau fully emasculates the males and rightly so. Prideful and singular focused is a typical male view where as female is often whole world view. It’s good to see when the F/M bond is richly rewarded and described so well. 🤪
Interesting role reversal of typical shifter romance dynamics. MMC is a humanoid alien (practically indistinguishable from a human) and FMC is a near-feral tiger shifter. She bites, y’all. She takes people to PIECES. The bad guys have their hands full trying to kidnap this FMC. I enjoyed the scenes of her fishing and hunting, her prey drive making her a very unique character for the genre.
The thing that drops this book from being a 5 star is the spicy scenes, unfortunately. The kinks don’t seem to fit the characters, and they go too far too soon—I prefer negotiation and safe words before we go into impact play, bondage and blindfolds, but the MCs don’t ever really talk about their lines and limits, which is disappointing.