Wild Fire by Christine Feehan
Paranormal Romance
April 27, 2010
Paperback, 400 Pages
Jove
Reviewed by Tori

Favorite quote: “I activated our ‘come and get us, we’re fucked’ button.”

Leopard shifter Conner Vega is a member of one of the most lethal shifter tribes in the Amazon. He and a group of fellow shifters are part of a covert group that handles dangerous assignments to eliminate all threats to the rain forest and their tribes.

Conner meets his mate, Isabeau Chandler, on such a mission. Caught between his need to claim her as his and maintaining his undercover assignment-Conner chooses the assignment and is forced to betray his mate. Carrying the scars of his betrayal, Conner is forced to  bear the memory of his shame alone forever.

Isabeau is a Borneo shifter who has never forgiven or forgotten Conner. While she despises the very ground he walks on-her body betrays her with a raging passion only he can satisfy. Now circumstances has forced them together. And hell hath no fury like a shifter scorned.

Conner Vega is a beautiful terrifying leopard shifter. He is called upon to once more go undercover for the cause. But this mission will test his very soul. Shifter children have been kidnapped by drug czar Imelda Cortez in order to force the tribes to run her drugs through the forest. Conner and his men have been asked to take Imelda and her operation out and rescue the children. Conner will have to seduce Imelda and this brings back memories of another time he seduced and betrayed a woman; Isabeau Chandler. Isabeau is his mate and he left her with nothing more then pain, humiliation, and betrayel. But his new mission brings Isabeau back into his life and gives then both a second chance at the passion they barely tasted before.


Wild Fire is a heady passionate seductive story filled with romance, suspense, and my favorite…shapeshifters. Rowr!!! Feehan puts the main protagonists Conner and Isabeau together right from the start, allowing them to start repairing their tumultuous relationship. The depth of their emotions leaps right off the page. I could feel Conner’s love for Isabeau and of her conflicted feelings for Conner. Feenan has that unique ability that every writer strives for. To allow the reader to truly experience what her characters are feeling.

This story leaves you no doubt to the depth of Conner’s love and his shame for what he did. Isabeau clearly reciprocates the feelings but as expected needs to over come her anger at Conner. I really love how Feehan have them come together and begin the healing in the beginning of the story. Their evolving love story is shamelessly erotic and incorporates into the plot seamlessly. Isabeau has no idea she is a shifter and Conner uses the excuse of teaching her as a way to keep Isabeau close to him. When Conner has to go through with the mission, Isabeau and the rest of the group talk Conner into allowing her to accompany them to Imelda’s.

The villains of this story are some nasty depraved individuals. The kicker is, this stuff really happens. Deception is a core theme in the story so the good and bad aren’t always obvious. There are some beautiful moving scenes in the book that brought tears to my eyes. There are some disturbing forces at work that test the bonds of Isabeau and Conner’s relationship that I really felt went a little too far. But Feehan has them play out plausible satisfactory way. The secondary characters are a delight that I very much enjoyed meeting. Some new characters are introduced that I hope to see more of, especially Jeremiah. The banter between them is fast paced and very humorous at times.  I cannot wait to read about each one meeting their mates and the story of their journey.

I only had one problem with the book. Feehan has a recurring theme in her books about dominance & innocence. Often the heroine is often overcome in some sexual fashion by a man in the book-be it her lover or enemy. Conner remarks frequently that Isabeau was an innocent when he met her and he alone taught her how to please a man. This creeps me out a little. But Conner doesn’t lord the whole alpha dominance thing over Isabeau. He is respectful of her and doesn’t push a side her feelings or thoughts. He treats her as his equal and that went far in me liking this story.


Rating: 4/5

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Thanks Tori!!