Review for Fae Books: Shifting Pride by Laura Diamond

Hey, folks! Got another review done for Fae Books, and I wanted to share it with you all! This time around, we ventured into the were-world with Shifting Pride, by Laura Diamond.




"Curiosity brings out the Kitty...

Sixteen-year-old Nickie Leone has proof her father is still alive. His watch arrives in the mail, with a note telling her to “keep it hidden,” and her curiosity is piqued. She obeys the request, even keeping it hidden from her mother. But when an email from her father disappears before her very eyes, she begins to question her own sanity.

And things get even more complicated when she meets Xavian Katz, the blue-eyed, blonde hottie whose contagious smile and ridiculous sense of humor make her want to tell him all her secrets. But there’s a current beneath his charm that she can’t quite read. He’s hiding something.

When Nickie grows pointed ears and whiskers…and then a tail!...Xavian (who always seems to knows the right time to be around) seems unsurprised. He’s a shapeshifter too, a coincidence that Nickie can’t deny or ignore. She needs his help to master her new abilities, because her father’s rival, Derek, wants her to join his tribe. The last thing she wants is to be under his rule, but Derek’s got something to do with her dad’s disappearance—she knows it. And maybe letting herself be captured is the best way to find out…"



Nickie might think she's a normal teenage girl, but the building evidence in the first few chapters of Shifting Pride lead to the revelation of a world within our own that is both terrifying and exhilarating. And Nickie gets dragged right into the middle of it all. Before long, the fur is flying and Nickie is fighting for her life and on the hunt for the father everyone else thought was dead.

I have to admit, I really liked this book. The tension throughout the story kept building and building, keeping the reader intrigued and flipping pages at light speed to get to the next scene. There were a couple of instances where the pace lost a tiny touch of steam, but I really don't think it impacted the story overall, which was fast-paced and action packed. The subtle hints at Nickie's impending transfiguration is excellent. Oh, and never before has a book caused me to develop a food craving, but now all I want is tuna!

There were a couple of inconsistencies in the voice and tense of the story, and the board game they're playing is described as a movie-themed board game, most of the descriptions sound far more like Monopoly than a movie style game. For me it was a little distracting and I had to go back and reread it, but it was still not so overwhelming that it took away from the story.

I would have liked to have seen a little more tension when the two foes faced off, but it was still a very enjoyable read. I actually lost myself in the book so much so that I managed to read a hundred pages in an hour, and didn't even realize I had made that much progress. I love it when a book can keep me engaged so much that I lose time in my day.

Overall, I would give Shifting Pride 4/5 stars. I really enjoyed the book, and would recommend it to any Young Adult fans or fans of Paranormal/Fantasy stories.

Reviewed by Ash T of Fae Books (www.faebooks.co.uk)