Status Updates From Jaguar Fever (Heart of the ...

The final was truly heart-pounding and action-filled, even if I wished for Wade’s facedown with Lion Mane to be more impressive after all the build up. But the heroes actually were in real danger, and the theme of illegal hunting of exotic animals was explored better than the drug cartels who played the villain in the first book. And Thompson is awesome – I’m tempted to read Terry Spear’s other series just for him!

Connor’s overprotectiveness seriously annoys me – it’s one thing to worry about your sister’s well-being, but he keeps acting as if Maya is a little girl in need of supervision, not a grown-up woman. And Connor is jealous of Kat’s possible relationship with Wade, too, even though they only corresponded in past and never actually met! Honestly, I was so glad when Kat called him out on this.

The heroes get into risky situations fairy often, but I rarely feel that they are in any real danger. There was a tense scene when Maya had to face down Bill Bettinger and his minion to save Wade, but after that? Wade is held on a gunpoint by another hunter, but he breaks the guy’s arm out in seconds. Maya is attacked by Lion Mane, but Connor saves her in moments after his attack, and Maya gets away with a scratch.

Maya is an awesome character, strong-willed and stubborn enough to get what she wants. And while Wade is in Special Forces and more than competent in his job, Maya doesn’t play a damsel in distress when he is around. Quite the opposite, when Wade is down, she is the one to save him – and once she has an advantage in fight, Maya kills the bad guys without a moment of hesitation.

The conflict set between Maya and Wade is credible and plausible. Wade had been burned by a past relationship when a woman refused to commit to him and wants to settle down. Maya also wants to find a mate, but she had just discovered an undercover society of jaguar shifters, so it’s understandable that she would want to date different people first instead of falling for the first unrelated male shifter she had met.

I wonder, does Terry Spear intentionally writes her books with the objective to make the reader fall in love with the MCs sibling? In the first book, I dislike Connor and adored his sister Maya. Now I’m okay with Wade as the MC, but it’s his brother David that I’m utterly charmed by. David is definitely a ladies’ man, but he’s also funny and charismatic, caring and light-hearted, and he looks out after his brother.

I haven’t read Terry Spear’s ‘Heart of the Wolf’ series, but judging by the references, there is a loose crossover as Henry Thompson refers to previously dealing with wolves being stolen from the zoo, and the blurbs of one ‘Heart of the Wolf’ books imply that a werewolf protagonist was being kept in the zoo. I’m actually a little sorry for the guy, having to deal with werewolves and now with jaguar shifters, too!

It’s ironic that in the first book, Connor and Maya hadn’t known any jaguar shifters others than their family even existed, and now it’s revealed that there’s a whole undercover society of shifters, complete with themed night clubs and special forces. More than that, turns out Andersons have cousins – considering how eager they were to find more of their kind, it’s endearing to see them gain more family.